{"id":"01KG8AJM4M9R40CE3RHFE6C2W2","cid":"bafkreiezjbzu7kculnwdr3m2jfdkhlhgj3ht5x2mozhn7z6ikhgyz2qxn4","type":"chapter","properties":{"description":"# CHAPTER XXIII.\n\n## Overview - What this is (type, form, dates, scope)\n\nChapter XXIII is a section from the novel \"[THE CONFIDENCE-MAN: HIS MASQUERADE.](arke:01KG8AJ86G6HP7TCHND218MWGA)\" by Herman Melville, extracted from the text file \"[the_confidence_man.txt](arke:01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4)\". This chapter, labeled \"CHAPTER XXIII. IN WHICH THE POWERFUL EFFECT OF NATURAL SCENERY IS EVINCED IN THE CASE OF THE MISSOURIAN, WHO, IN VIEW OF THE REGION ROUND-ABOUT CAIRO, HAS A RETURN OF HIS CHILLY FIT.\", was extracted on January 30, 2026. It is part of the \"[Melville Complete Works](arke:01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW)\" collection.\n\n## Context - Background and provenance from related entities\n\nThis chapter follows \"[CHAPTER XXII. IN THE POLITE SPIRIT OF THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS.](arke:01KG8AJM4RS4GSX8JEXTB47AGF)\" and precedes \"[CHAPTER XXIV. A PHILANTHROPIST UNDERTAKES TO CONVERT A MISANTHROPE, BUT DOES NOT GET BEYOND CONFUTING HIM.](arke:01KG8AJM4MATQP3GZQR23SYFAP)\". The novel and its chapters were extracted from the source file as part of the larger collection of Melville's works.\n\n## Contents - What it contains, key subjects and details\n\nChapter XXIII describes a scene at Cairo, where the \"old established firm of Fever & Ague\" is still active. The chapter focuses on a Missourian character who is contemplating the swampy surroundings and the man with the brass-plate, suspecting him. The Missourian reflects on human subjectivity, wisdom, and the nature of trust. He is then roused from his thoughts by a cordial greeting and a puff of tobacco smoke.\n","description_generated_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:40.834Z","description_model":"gemini-2.5-flash-lite","description_title":"CHAPTER XXIII.","end_line":5958,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:36.061Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"CHAPTER XXIII.\n\nIN WHICH THE POWERFUL EFFECT OF NATURAL SCENERY IS EVINCED IN THE CASE\nOF THE MISSOURIAN, WHO, IN VIEW OF THE REGION ROUND-ABOUT CAIRO, HAS A\nRETURN OF HIS CHILLY FIT.","source_file":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","start_line":5888,"text":"CHAPTER XXIII.\r\n\r\nIN WHICH THE POWERFUL EFFECT OF NATURAL SCENERY IS EVINCED IN THE CASE\r\nOF THE MISSOURIAN, WHO, IN VIEW OF THE REGION ROUND-ABOUT CAIRO, HAS A\r\nRETURN OF HIS CHILLY FIT.\r\n\r\n\r\nAt Cairo, the old established firm of Fever & Ague is still settling up\r\nits unfinished business; that Creole grave-digger, Yellow Jack--his hand\r\nat the mattock and spade has not lost its cunning; while Don Saturninus\r\nTyphus taking his constitutional with Death, Calvin Edson and three\r\nundertakers, in the morass, snuffs up the mephitic breeze with zest.\r\n\r\nIn the dank twilight, fanned with mosquitoes, and sparkling with\r\nfire-flies, the boat now lies before Cairo. She has landed certain\r\npassengers, and tarries for the coming of expected ones. Leaning over\r\nthe rail on the inshore side, the Missourian eyes through the dubious\r\nmedium that swampy and squalid domain; and over it audibly mumbles his\r\ncynical mind to himself, as Apermantus' dog may have mumbled his bone.\r\nHe bethinks him that the man with the brass-plate was to land on this\r\nvillainous bank, and for that cause, if no other, begins to suspect him.\r\nLike one beginning to rouse himself from a dose of chloroform\r\ntreacherously given, he half divines, too, that he, the philosopher,\r\nhad unwittingly been betrayed into being an unphilosophical dupe. To\r\nwhat vicissitudes of light and shade is man subject! He ponders the\r\nmystery of human subjectivity in general. He thinks he perceives with\r\nCrossbones, his favorite author, that, as one may wake up well in the\r\nmorning, very well, indeed, and brisk as a buck, I thank you, but ere\r\nbed-time get under the weather, there is no telling how--so one may wake\r\nup wise, and slow of assent, very wise and very slow, I assure you, and\r\nfor all that, before night, by like trick in the atmosphere, be left in\r\nthe lurch a ninny. Health and wisdom equally precious, and equally\r\nlittle as unfluctuating possessions to be relied on.\r\n\r\nBut where was slipped in the entering wedge? Philosophy, knowledge,\r\nexperience--were those trusty knights of the castle recreant? No, but\r\nunbeknown to them, the enemy stole on the castle's south side, its\r\ngenial one, where Suspicion, the warder, parleyed. In fine, his too\r\nindulgent, too artless and companionable nature betrayed him. Admonished\r\nby which, he thinks he must be a little splenetic in his intercourse\r\nhenceforth.\r\n\r\nHe revolves the crafty process of sociable chat, by which, as he\r\nfancies, the man with the brass-plate wormed into him, and made such a\r\nfool of him as insensibly to persuade him to waive, in his exceptional\r\ncase, that general law of distrust systematically applied to the race.\r\nHe revolves, but cannot comprehend, the operation, still less the\r\noperator. Was the man a trickster, it must be more for the love than the\r\nlucre. Two or three dirty dollars the motive to so many nice wiles? And\r\nyet how full of mean needs his seeming. Before his mental vision the\r\nperson of that threadbare Talleyrand, that impoverished Machiavelli,\r\nthat seedy Rosicrucian--for something of all these he vaguely deems\r\nhim--passes now in puzzled review. Fain, in his disfavor, would he make\r\nout a logical case. The doctrine of analogies recurs. Fallacious enough\r\ndoctrine when wielded against one's prejudices, but in corroboration of\r\ncherished suspicions not without likelihood. Analogically, he couples\r\nthe slanting cut of the equivocator's coat-tails with the sinister cast\r\nin his eye; he weighs slyboot's sleek speech in the light imparted by\r\nthe oblique import of the smooth slope of his worn boot-heels; the\r\ninsinuator's undulating flunkyisms dovetail into those of the flunky\r\nbeast that windeth his way on his belly.\r\n\r\nFrom these uncordial reveries he is roused by a cordial slap on the\r\nshoulder, accompanied by a spicy volume of tobacco-smoke, out of which\r\ncame a voice, sweet as a seraph's:\r\n\r\n\"A penny for your thoughts, my fine fellow.\"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r","title":"CHAPTER XXIII.\n\nIN WHICH THE POWERFUL EFFECT OF NATURAL SCENERY IS EVINCED IN THE CASE\nOF THE MISSOURIAN, WHO, IN VIEW OF THE REGION ROUND-ABOUT CAIRO, HAS A\nRETURN OF HIS CHILLY FIT."},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJ86G6HP7TCHND218MWGA","peer_type":"novel","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AJM4RS4GSX8JEXTB47AGF","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AJM4MATQP3GZQR23SYFAP","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"next"}],"ver":3,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:37.620Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:41.233Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF5C36SQEVDHC9CBNZZJH9K"}}