{"id":"01KG6YH4FSKB9DHWZSWCMXM6HR","cid":"bafkreiglhkqiuttgltcodgo7z32d3yziwicguplmgr24tnrxv5agrk34g4","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":5997,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:45.581Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 18","source_file":"01KG6YDD8GKW0DRD5H2MY1NRZ7","start_line":5936,"text":"our roof. I am left so lonesome now; day after day, all the day long,\r\ndear William is gone; and all the damp day long grief drizzles and\r\ndrizzles down on my soul. But I pray to God to forgive me for this; and\r\nfor the rest, manage it as well as I may.\"\r\n\r\nBitter and mouldy is the \"Poor Man's Pudding,\" groaned I to myself,\r\nhalf choked with but one little mouthful of it, which would hardly go\r\ndown.\r\n\r\nI could stay no longer to hear of sorrows for which the sincerest\r\nsympathies could give no adequate relief; of a fond persuasion, to\r\nwhich there could be furnished no further proof than already was had--a\r\npersuasion, too, of that sort which much speaking is sure more or less\r\nto mar; of causeless self-upbraidings, which no expostulations could\r\nhave dispelled, I offered no pay for hospitalities gratuitous and\r\nhonorable as those of a prince. I knew that such offerings would have\r\nbeen more than declined; charity resented.\r\n\r\nThe native American poor never lose their delicacy or pride; hence,\r\nthough unreduced to the physical degradation of the European pauper,\r\nthey yet suffer more in mind than the poor of any other people in the\r\nworld. Those peculiar social sensibilities nourished by our peculiar\r\npolitical principles, while they enhance the true dignity of a\r\nprosperous American, do but minister to the added wretchedness of the\r\nunfortunate; first, by prohibiting their acceptance of what little\r\nrandom relief charity may offer; and, second, by furnishing them with\r\nthe keenest appreciation of the smarting distinction between their\r\nideal of universal equality and their grindstone experience of the\r\npractical misery and infamy of poverty--a misery and infamy which is,\r\never has been, and ever will be, precisely the same in India, England,\r\nand America.\r\n\r\nUnder pretense that my journey called me forthwith, I bade the\r\ndame good-by; shook her cold hand; looked my last into her blue,\r\nresigned eye, and went out into the wet. But cheerless as it was,\r\nand damp, damp, damp--the heavy atmosphere charged with all sorts\r\nof incipiencies--I yet became conscious by the suddenness of the\r\ncontrast, that the house air I had quitted was laden down with that\r\npeculiar deleterious quality, the height of which--insufferable to some\r\nvisitants--will be found in a poorhouse ward.\r\n\r\nThis ill-ventilation in winter of the rooms of the poor--a thing,\r\ntoo, so stubbornly persisted in--is usually charged upon them as\r\ntheir disgraceful neglect of the most simple means to health. But the\r\ninstinct of the poor is wiser than we think. The air which ventilates,\r\nlikewise _cools_. And to any shiverer, ill-ventilated warmth is better\r\nthan well-ventilated cold. Of all the preposterous assumptions of\r\nhumanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on\r\nthe habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed.\r\n\r\n       *       *       *       *       *\r\n\r\n\"Blandmour,\" said I that evening, as after tea I sat on his comfortable\r\nsofa, before a blazing fire, with one of his two ruddy little children\r\non my knee, \"you are not what may rightly be called a rich man; you\r\nhave a fair competence; no more. Is it not so? Well then, I do not\r\ninclude _you_, when I say, that if ever a rich man speaks prosperously\r\nto me of a Poor Man, I shall set it down as--I won't mention the word.\"\r\n\r\n\r\nPICTURE SECOND\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 18"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6YGBGKG15EQNWSZXFWPM05","peer_type":"segment","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6YDD8GKW0DRD5H2MY1NRZ7","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG6YCG626JN4FCG8QK17CQCF","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6YH4FSX758JVMC1D5BDXJR","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:51.481Z","ts":"2026-01-30T07:57:56.129Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}