{"id":"01KG8AK8NCJMMS14ZG882HTQP4","cid":"bafkreidj2zgzi3gar2lobhg3svnwitoerxiw2rvint7ng25ng3e75lysn4","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":7259,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:57.725Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","start_line":7194,"text":"think to be much like each bottle of port, not such port as this, but\r\nsuch port as they hold to. Strange traducers, who see good faith in\r\nnothing, however sacred. Not medicines, not the wine in sacraments, has\r\nescaped them. The doctor with his phial, and the priest with his\r\nchalice, they deem equally the unconscious dispensers of bogus cordials\r\nto the dying.\"\r\n\r\n\"Dreadful!\"\r\n\r\n\"Dreadful indeed,\" said the cosmopolitan solemnly. \"These distrusters\r\nstab at the very soul of confidence. If this wine,\" impressively holding\r\nup his full glass, \"if this wine with its bright promise be not true,\r\nhow shall man be, whose promise can be no brighter? But if wine be\r\nfalse, while men are true, whither shall fly convivial geniality? To\r\nthink of sincerely-genial souls drinking each other's health at unawares\r\nin perfidious and murderous drugs!\"\r\n\r\n\"Horrible!\"\r\n\r\n\"Much too much so to be true, Charlie. Let us forget it. Come, you are\r\nmy entertainer on this occasion, and yet you don't pledge me. I have\r\nbeen waiting for it.\"\r\n\r\n\"Pardon, pardon,\" half confusedly and half ostentatiously lifting his\r\nglass. \"I pledge you, Frank, with my whole heart, believe me,\" taking a\r\ndraught too decorous to be large, but which, small though it was, was\r\nfollowed by a slight involuntary wryness to the mouth.\r\n\r\n\"And I return you the pledge, Charlie, heart-warm as it came to me, and\r\nhonest as this wine I drink it in,\" reciprocated the cosmopolitan with\r\nprincely kindliness in his gesture, taking a generous swallow,\r\nconcluding in a smack, which, though audible, was not so much so as to\r\nbe unpleasing.\r\n\r\n\"Talking of alleged spuriousness of wines,\" said he, tranquilly setting\r\ndown his glass, and then sloping back his head and with friendly\r\nfixedness eying the wine, \"perhaps the strangest part of those allegings\r\nis, that there is, as claimed, a kind of man who, while convinced that\r\non this continent most wines are shams, yet still drinks away at them;\r\naccounting wine so fine a thing, that even the sham article is better\r\nthan none at all. And if the temperance people urge that, by this\r\ncourse, he will sooner or later be undermined in health, he answers,\r\n'And do you think I don't know that? But health without cheer I hold a\r\nbore; and cheer, even of the spurious sort, has its price, which I am\r\nwilling to pay.'\"\r\n\r\n\"Such a man, Frank, must have a disposition ungovernably bacchanalian.\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, if such a man there be, which I don't credit. It is a fable, but a\r\nfable from which I once heard a person of less genius than grotesqueness\r\ndraw a moral even more extravagant than the fable itself. He said that\r\nit illustrated, as in a parable, how that a man of a disposition\r\nungovernably good-natured might still familiarly associate with men,\r\nthough, at the same time, he believed the greater part of men\r\nfalse-hearted--accounting society so sweet a thing that even the\r\nspurious sort was better than none at all. And if the Rochefoucaultites\r\nurge that, by this course, he will sooner or later be undermined in\r\nsecurity, he answers, 'And do you think I don't know that? But security\r\nwithout society I hold a bore; and society, even of the spurious sort,\r\nhas its price, which I am willing to pay.'\"\r\n\r\n\"A most singular theory,\" said the stranger with a slight fidget, eying\r\nhis companion with some inquisitiveness, \"indeed, Frank, a most\r\nslanderous thought,\" he exclaimed in sudden heat and with an involuntary\r\nlook almost of being personally aggrieved.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJMVDVBGMNVX6KTEX6BBC","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AK8NC1EYK7T8M9DXQKDZ9","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AK8N60KZBH9FMAFF3JMQJ","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:58.636Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:12.239Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}