{"id":"01KG8AK8N5TR9TFPP707ZXPHZ4","cid":"bafkreigtpvbvu7fe5q42b6bf5wtixquuk3vdhfg4mhcj3jsjrwd4wjuymm","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":1349,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:57.722Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","start_line":1291,"text":"surprise, not to say interest. But, singularly for a collegian, being\r\napparently of a retiring nature, he did not speak; when the other still\r\nmore increased his diffidence by changing from soliloquy to colloquy, in\r\na manner strangely mixed of familiarity and pathos.\r\n\r\n\"Ah, who is this? You did not hear me, my young friend, did you? Why,\r\nyou, too, look sad. My melancholy is not catching!\"\r\n\r\n\"Sir, sir,\" stammered the other.\r\n\r\n\"Pray, now,\" with a sort of sociable sorrowfulness, slowly sliding along\r\nthe rail, \"Pray, now, my young friend, what volume have you there? Give\r\nme leave,\" gently drawing it from him. \"Tacitus!\" Then opening it at\r\nrandom, read: \"In general a black and shameful period lies before me.\"\r\n\"Dear young sir,\" touching his arm alarmedly, \"don't read this book. It\r\nis poison, moral poison. Even were there truth in Tacitus, such truth\r\nwould have the operation of falsity, and so still be poison, moral\r\npoison. Too well I know this Tacitus. In my college-days he came near\r\nsouring me into cynicism. Yes, I began to turn down my collar, and go\r\nabout with a disdainfully joyless expression.\"\r\n\r\n\"Sir, sir, I--I--\"\r\n\r\n\"Trust me. Now, young friend, perhaps you think that Tacitus, like me,\r\nis only melancholy; but he's more--he's ugly. A vast difference, young\r\nsir, between the melancholy view and the ugly. The one may show the\r\nworld still beautiful, not so the other. The one may be compatible with\r\nbenevolence, the other not. The one may deepen insight, the other\r\nshallows it. Drop Tacitus. Phrenologically, my young friend, you would\r\nseem to have a well-developed head, and large; but cribbed within the\r\nugly view, the Tacitus view, your large brain, like your large ox in the\r\ncontracted field, will but starve the more. And don't dream, as some of\r\nyou students may, that, by taking this same ugly view, the deeper\r\nmeanings of the deeper books will so alone become revealed to you. Drop\r\nTacitus. His subtlety is falsity, To him, in his double-refined anatomy\r\nof human nature, is well applied the Scripture saying--'There is a\r\nsubtle man, and the same is deceived.' Drop Tacitus. Come, now, let me\r\nthrow the book overboard.\"\r\n\r\n\"Sir, I--I--\"\r\n\r\n\"Not a word; I know just what is in your mind, and that is just what I\r\nam speaking to. Yes, learn from me that, though the sorrows of the world\r\nare great, its wickedness--that is, its ugliness--is small. Much cause\r\nto pity man, little to distrust him. I myself have known adversity, and\r\nknow it still. But for that, do I turn cynic? No, no: it is small beer\r\nthat sours. To my fellow-creatures I owe alleviations. So, whatever I\r\nmay have undergone, it but deepens my confidence in my kind. Now, then\"\r\n(winningly), \"this book--will you let me drown it for you?\"\r\n\r\n\"Really, sir--I--\"\r\n\r\n\"I see, I see. But of course you read Tacitus in order to aid you in\r\nunderstanding human nature--as if truth was ever got at by libel. My\r\nyoung friend, if to know human nature is your object, drop Tacitus and\r\ngo north to the cemeteries of Auburn and Greenwood.\"\r\n\r\n\"Upon my word, I--I--\"\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJJRSJDR0VDE83NPAST6V","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AK8N5AG119P1GN82WM7S0","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AK8N5VCPHEVYB0FAG3VPK","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:58.629Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:06.640Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}