{"id":"01KG8AJJRWK23SMRRZNAND3MSF","cid":"bafkreidaki4p2vr2swiuk7prsaxkw52kh4rpvmyzablc7kzlkjzseccriy","type":"chapter","properties":{"description":"# CHAPTER XXIV. CONTINUED.\n\n## Overview\nThis is a chapter from the novel *Israel Potter: His Fifty Years of Exile*. It is part of the \"Melville Complete Works\" collection and was extracted from the file `israel_potter.txt`.\n\n## Context\nThis chapter follows \"CHAPTER XXIII. ISRAEL IN EGYPT.\" and precedes \"CHAPTER XXV. IN THE CITY OF DIS.\" The narrative focuses on the protagonist, Israel Potter, and his experiences.\n\n## Contents\nThe chapter details the process of brick-making in kilns, describing how the heat affects the bricks and their value. It uses vivid imagery, comparing the kilns to \"temporary temples\" and the bricks' transformation to \"boiling lobsters.\" The text then shifts to Israel's internal reflections on his fate. He contemplates the irony of his situation: a man who fought against foreigners is now enslaved, serving the very people he once opposed by making bricks for their buildings. This realization leads him to a philosophical musing on the futility of identity and action, concluding that \"All is vanity and clay.\"","description_generated_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:43.582Z","description_model":"gemini-2.5-flash-lite","description_title":"CHAPTER XXIV. CONTINUED.","end_line":7005,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:34.754Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"CHAPTER XXIV. CONTINUED.","source_file":"01KG89J1DKC9HHJRKY25JZBEXW","start_line":6959,"text":"CHAPTER XXIV.\r\nCONTINUED.\r\n\r\n\r\nAll night long, men sat before the mouth of the kilns, feeding them\r\nwith fuel. A dull smoke—a smoke of their torments—went up from their\r\ntops. It was curious to see the kilns under the action of the fire,\r\ngradually changing color, like boiling lobsters. When, at last, the\r\nfires would be extinguished, the bricks being duly baked, Israel often\r\ntook a peep into the low vaulted ways at the base, where the flaming\r\nfagots had crackled. The bricks immediately lining the vaults would be\r\nall burnt to useless scrolls, black as charcoal, and twisted into\r\nshapes the most grotesque; the next tier would be a little less\r\nwithered, but hardly fit for service; and gradually, as you went higher\r\nand higher along the successive layers of the kiln, you came to the\r\nmidmost ones, sound, square, and perfect bricks, bringing the highest\r\nprices; from these the contents of the kiln gradually deteriorated in\r\nthe opposite direction, upward. But the topmost layers, though inferior\r\nto the best, by no means presented the distorted look of the\r\nfurnace-bricks. The furnace-bricks were haggard, with the immediate\r\nblistering of the fire—the midmost ones were ruddy with a genial and\r\ntempered glow—the summit ones were pale with the languor of too\r\nexclusive an exemption from the burden of the blaze.\r\n\r\nThese kilns were a sort of temporary temples constructed in the yard,\r\neach brick being set against its neighbor almost with the care taken by\r\nthe mason. But as soon as the fire was extinguished, down came the kiln\r\nin a tumbled ruin, carted off to London, once more to be set up in\r\nambitious edifices, to a true brickyard philosopher, little less\r\ntransient than the kilns.\r\n\r\nSometimes, lading out his dough, Israel could not but bethink him of\r\nwhat seemed enigmatic in his fate. He whom love of country made a hater\r\nof her foes—the foreigners among whom he now was thrown—he who, as\r\nsoldier and sailor, had joined to kill, burn and destroy both them and\r\ntheirs—here he was at last, serving that very people as a slave, better\r\nsucceeding in making their bricks than firing their ships. To think\r\nthat he should be thus helping, with all his strength, to extend the\r\nwalls of the Thebes of the oppressor, made him half mad. Poor Israel!\r\nwell-named—bondsman in the English Egypt. But he drowned the thought by\r\nstill more recklessly spattering with his ladle: “What signifies who we\r\nbe, or where we are, or what we do?” Slap-dash! “Kings as clowns are\r\ncodgers—who ain’t a nobody?” Splash! “All is vanity and clay.”\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r","title":"CHAPTER XXIV. CONTINUED."},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJ76S23Z6FF7SMFEB4N3X","peer_type":"novel","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1DKC9HHJRKY25JZBEXW","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AJJRTSPPV0WM71TZXDPYD","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AJJRWBE8SV99PER96J4GW","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"next"}],"ver":3,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:36.220Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:43.780Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF5C36SQEVDHC9CBNZZJH9K"}}