{"id":"01KG8AK9ACJ0XNJ0ZJCJRXSYBA","cid":"bafkreigsw5p7ulqdafgoxei57xbdxmwpejmf6o2bhhxucfxom74kvazn4q","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":1875,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:57.722Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 3","source_file":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","start_line":1807,"text":"to attend, in a festive grove, the afternoon wedding of his niece: so\r\ndid not carry much money with him.\r\n\r\nThe other was about expressing his thanks when the gentleman in his\r\npleasant way checked him: the gratitude was on the other side. To him,\r\nhe said, charity was in one sense not an effort, but a luxury; against\r\ntoo great indulgence in which his steward, a humorist, had sometimes\r\nadmonished him.\r\n\r\nIn some general talk which followed, relative to organized modes of\r\ndoing good, the gentleman expressed his regrets that so many benevolent\r\nsocieties as there were, here and there isolated in the land, should not\r\nact in concert by coming together, in the way that already in each\r\nsociety the individuals composing it had done, which would result, he\r\nthought, in like advantages upon a larger scale. Indeed, such a\r\nconfederation might, perhaps, be attended with as happy results as\r\npolitically attended that of the states.\r\n\r\nUpon his hitherto moderate enough companion, this suggestion had an\r\neffect illustrative in a sort of that notion of Socrates, that the soul\r\nis a harmony; for as the sound of a flute, in any particular key, will,\r\nit is said, audibly affect the corresponding chord of any harp in good\r\ntune, within hearing, just so now did some string in him respond, and\r\nwith animation.\r\n\r\nWhich animation, by the way, might seem more or less out of character in\r\nthe man in gray, considering his unsprightly manner when first\r\nintroduced, had he not already, in certain after colloquies, given\r\nproof, in some degree, of the fact, that, with certain natures, a\r\nsoberly continent air at times, so far from arguing emptiness of stuff,\r\nis good proof it is there, and plenty of it, because unwasted, and may\r\nbe used the more effectively, too, when opportunity offers. What now\r\nfollows on the part of the man in gray will still further exemplify,\r\nperhaps somewhat strikingly, the truth, or what appears to be such, of\r\nthis remark.\r\n\r\n\"Sir,\" said he eagerly, \"I am before you. A project, not dissimilar to\r\nyours, was by me thrown out at the World's Fair in London.\"\r\n\r\n\"World's Fair? You there? Pray how was that?\"\r\n\r\n\"First, let me----\"\r\n\r\n\"Nay, but first tell me what took you to the Fair?\"\r\n\r\n\"I went to exhibit an invalid's easy-chair I had invented.\"\r\n\r\n\"Then you have not always been in the charity business?\"\r\n\r\n\"Is it not charity to ease human suffering? I am, and always have been,\r\nas I always will be, I trust, in the charity business, as you call it;\r\nbut charity is not like a pin, one to make the head, and the other the\r\npoint; charity is a work to which a good workman may be competent in all\r\nits branches. I invented my Protean easy-chair in odd intervals stolen\r\nfrom meals and sleep.\"\r\n\r\n\"You call it the Protean easy-chair; pray describe it.\"\r\n\r\n\"My Protean easy-chair is a chair so all over bejointed, behinged, and\r\nbepadded, everyway so elastic, springy, and docile to the airiest touch,\r\nthat in some one of its endlessly-changeable accommodations of back,\r\nseat, footboard, and arms, the most restless body, the body most racked,\r\nnay, I had almost added the most tormented conscience must, somehow and\r\nsomewhere, find rest. Believing that I owed it to suffering humanity to\r\nmake known such a chair to the utmost, I scraped together my little\r\nmeans and off to the World's Fair with it.\"\r\n\r\n\"You did right. But your scheme; how did you come to hit upon that?\"\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 3"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJJRSD8D6KH52EB3K3B42","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AK9A33F0080P9QNSC6MTX","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AK9AC9ZA3QVZZHDJQT6AP","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:59.308Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:06.966Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}