{"id":"01KG8AK98QP9YBME4EMNDYQBD4","cid":"bafkreidxkok6d4zvrblhbn3lhk6bksxlzljktfpoejg75e7pet65daxeyy","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":8426,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:57.725Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 3","source_file":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","start_line":8360,"text":"preternaturally cold, gemmy glance out of his pellucid blue eye, that he\r\nseemed more a metaphysical merman than a feeling man; \"is a rattle-snake\r\naccountable?\"\r\n\r\n\"If I will not affirm that it is,\" returned the other, with the caution\r\nof no inexperienced thinker, \"neither will I deny it. But if we suppose\r\nit so, I need not say that such accountability is neither to you, nor\r\nme, nor the Court of Common Pleas, but to something superior.\"\r\n\r\nHe was proceeding, when the stranger would have interrupted him; but as\r\nreading his argument in his eye, the cosmopolitan, without waiting for\r\nit to be put into words, at once spoke to it: \"You object to my\r\nsupposition, for but such it is, that the rattle-snake's accountability\r\nis not by nature manifest; but might not much the same thing be urged\r\nagainst man's? A _reductio ad absurdum_, proving the objection vain. But\r\nif now,\" he continued, \"you consider what capacity for mischief there is\r\nin a rattle-snake (observe, I do not charge it with being mischievous, I\r\nbut say it has the capacity), could you well avoid admitting that that\r\nwould be no symmetrical view of the universe which should maintain that,\r\nwhile to man it is forbidden to kill, without judicial cause, his\r\nfellow, yet the rattle-snake has an implied permit of unaccountability\r\nto murder any creature it takes capricious umbrage at--man\r\nincluded?--But,\" with a wearied air, \"this is no genial talk; at least\r\nit is not so to me. Zeal at unawares embarked me in it. I regret it.\r\nPray, sit down, and take some of this wine.\"\r\n\r\n\"Your suggestions are new to me,\" said the other, with a kind of\r\ncondescending appreciativeness, as of one who, out of devotion to\r\nknowledge, disdains not to appropriate the least crumb of it, even from\r\na pauper's board; \"and, as I am a very Athenian in hailing a new\r\nthought, I cannot consent to let it drop so abruptly. Now, the\r\nrattle-snake----\"\r\n\r\n\"Nothing more about rattle-snakes, I beseech,\" in distress; \"I must\r\npositively decline to reenter upon that subject. Sit down, sir, I beg,\r\nand take some of this wine.\"\r\n\r\n\"To invite me to sit down with you is hospitable,\" collectedly\r\nacquiescing now in the change of topics; \"and hospitality being fabled\r\nto be of oriental origin, and forming, as it does, the subject of a\r\npleasing Arabian romance, as well as being a very romantic thing in\r\nitself--hence I always hear the expressions of hospitality with\r\npleasure. But, as for the wine, my regard for that beverage is so\r\nextreme, and I am so fearful of letting it sate me, that I keep my love\r\nfor it in the lasting condition of an untried abstraction. Briefly, I\r\nquaff immense draughts of wine from the page of Hafiz, but wine from a\r\ncup I seldom as much as sip.\"\r\n\r\nThe cosmopolitan turned a mild glance upon the speaker, who, now\r\noccupying the chair opposite him, sat there purely and coldly radiant as\r\na prism. It seemed as if one could almost hear him vitreously chime and\r\nring. That moment a waiter passed, whom, arresting with a sign, the\r\ncosmopolitan bid go bring a goblet of ice-water. \"Ice it well, waiter,\"\r\nsaid he; \"and now,\" turning to the stranger, \"will you, if you please,\r\ngive me your reason for the warning words you first addressed to me?\"\r\n\r\n\"I hope they were not such warnings as most warnings are,\" said the\r\nstranger; \"warnings which do not forewarn, but in mockery come after the\r\nfact. And yet something in you bids me think now, that whatever latent\r\ndesign your impostor friend might have had upon you, it as yet remains\r\nunaccomplished. You read his label.\"\r\n\r\n\"And what did it say? 'This is a genial soul,' So you see you must\r\neither give up your doctrine of labels, or else your prejudice against\r\nmy friend. But tell me,\" with renewed earnestness, \"what do you take him\r\nfor? What is he?\"\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 3"},"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":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AK9ZHCCN1GS61RRV090KD","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:59.255Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:13.228Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}