{"id":"01KG8AK98Q4F04NP2F84HJY656","cid":"bafkreicxlwmv6ej23bcvmhwal6wv4jir6bjed5chzuxunn6u22rnxjkd4q","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":8316,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:57.725Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","start_line":8250,"text":"CHAPTER XXXVI.\r\n\r\nIN WHICH THE COSMOPOLITAN IS ACCOSTED BY A MYSTIC, WHEREUPON ENSUES\r\nPRETTY MUCH SUCH TALK AS MIGHT BE EXPECTED.\r\n\r\n\r\nAs, not without some haste, the boon companion withdrew, a stranger\r\nadvanced, and touching the cosmopolitan, said: \"I think I heard you say\r\nyou would see that man again. Be warned; don't you do so.\"\r\n\r\nHe turned, surveying the speaker; a blue-eyed man, sandy-haired, and\r\nSaxon-looking; perhaps five and forty; tall, and, but for a certain\r\nangularity, well made; little touch of the drawing-room about him, but a\r\nlook of plain propriety of a Puritan sort, with a kind of farmer\r\ndignity. His age seemed betokened more by his brow, placidly thoughtful,\r\nthan by his general aspect, which had that look of youthfulness in\r\nmaturity, peculiar sometimes to habitual health of body, the original\r\ngift of nature, or in part the effect or reward of steady temperance of\r\nthe passions, kept so, perhaps, by constitution as much as morality. A\r\nneat, comely, almost ruddy cheek, coolly fresh, like a red\r\nclover-blossom at coolish dawn--the color of warmth preserved by the\r\nvirtue of chill. Toning the whole man, was one-knows-not-what of\r\nshrewdness and mythiness, strangely jumbled; in that way, he seemed a\r\nkind of cross between a Yankee peddler and a Tartar priest, though it\r\nseemed as if, at a pinch, the first would not in all probability play\r\nsecond fiddle to the last.\r\n\r\n\"Sir,\" said the cosmopolitan, rising and bowing with slow dignity, \"if I\r\ncannot with unmixed satisfaction hail a hint pointed at one who has just\r\nbeen clinking the social glass with me, on the other hand, I am not\r\ndisposed to underrate the motive which, in the present case, could alone\r\nhave prompted such an intimation. My friend, whose seat is still warm,\r\nhas retired for the night, leaving more or less in his bottle here.\r\nPray, sit down in his seat, and partake with me; and then, if you choose\r\nto hint aught further unfavorable to the man, the genial warmth of whose\r\nperson in part passes into yours, and whose genial hospitality meanders\r\nthrough you--be it so.\"\r\n\r\n\"Quite beautiful conceits,\" said the stranger, now scholastically and\r\nartistically eying the picturesque speaker, as if he were a statue in\r\nthe Pitti Palace; \"very beautiful:\" then with the gravest interest,\r\n\"yours, sir, if I mistake not, must be a beautiful soul--one full of all\r\nlove and truth; for where beauty is, there must those be.\"\r\n\r\n\"A pleasing belief,\" rejoined the cosmopolitan, beginning with an even\r\nair, \"and to confess, long ago it pleased me. Yes, with you and\r\nSchiller, I am pleased to believe that beauty is at bottom incompatible\r\nwith ill, and therefore am so eccentric as to have confidence in the\r\nlatent benignity of that beautiful creature, the rattle-snake, whose\r\nlithe neck and burnished maze of tawny gold, as he sleekly curls aloft\r\nin the sun, who on the prairie can behold without wonder?\"\r\n\r\nAs he breathed these words, he seemed so to enter into their spirit--as\r\nsome earnest descriptive speakers will--as unconsciously to wreathe his\r\nform and sidelong crest his head, till he all but seemed the creature\r\ndescribed. Meantime, the stranger regarded him with little surprise,\r\napparently, though with much contemplativeness of a mystical sort, and\r\npresently said:\r\n\r\n\"When charmed by the beauty of that viper, did it never occur to you to\r\nchange personalities with him? to feel what it was to be a snake? to\r\nglide unsuspected in grass? to sting, to kill at a touch; your whole\r\nbeautiful body one iridescent scabbard of death? In short, did the wish\r\nnever occur to you to feel yourself exempt from knowledge, and\r\nconscience, and revel for a while in the carefree, joyous life of a\r\nperfectly instinctive, unscrupulous, and irresponsible creature?\"\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJMVHXZ1WH9JRWME9D7FK","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AK98QN0GW223WS18DSBE7","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:59.255Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:13.579Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}