{"id":"01KG8AK9XTSB068YKK7VFP3CYC","cid":"bafkreihstc4mwjmizweoa2zximzr53x7n6evfmqlwbbms5zllkyt2edzxe","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":2851,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:57.722Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","start_line":2795,"text":"innocence tyrannized into sad nervousness under her spell, according to\r\nthe same authority, inly she chewed her blue clay, and you could mark\r\nthat she chuckled. These peculiarities were strange and unpleasing; but\r\nanother was alleged, one really incomprehensible. In company she had a\r\nstrange way of touching, as by accident, the arm or hand of comely young\r\nmen, and seemed to reap a secret delight from it, but whether from the\r\nhumane satisfaction of having given the evil-touch, as it is called, or\r\nwhether it was something else in her, not equally wonderful, but quite\r\nas deplorable, remained an enigma.\r\n\r\nNeedless to say what distress was the unfortunate man's, when, engaged\r\nin conversation with company, he would suddenly perceive his Goneril\r\nbestowing her mysterious touches, especially in such cases where the\r\nstrangeness of the thing seemed to strike upon the touched person,\r\nnotwithstanding good-breeding forbade his proposing the mystery, on the\r\nspot, as a subject of discussion for the company. In these cases, too,\r\nthe unfortunate man could never endure so much as to look upon the\r\ntouched young gentleman afterwards, fearful of the mortification of\r\nmeeting in his countenance some kind of more or less quizzingly-knowing\r\nexpression. He would shudderingly shun the young gentleman. So that\r\nhere, to the husband, Goneril's touch had the dread operation of the\r\nheathen taboo. Now Goneril brooked no chiding. So, at favorable times,\r\nhe, in a wary manner, and not indelicately, would venture in private\r\ninterviews gently to make distant allusions to this questionable\r\npropensity. She divined him. But, in her cold loveless way, said it was\r\nwitless to be telling one's dreams, especially foolish ones; but if the\r\nunfortunate man liked connubially to rejoice his soul with such\r\nchimeras, much connubial joy might they give him. All this was sad--a\r\ntouching case--but all might, perhaps, have been borne by the\r\nunfortunate man--conscientiously mindful of his vow--for better or for\r\nworse--to love and cherish his dear Goneril so long as kind heaven might\r\nspare her to him--but when, after all that had happened, the devil of\r\njealousy entered her, a calm, clayey, cakey devil, for none other could\r\npossess her, and the object of that deranged jealousy, her own child, a\r\nlittle girl of seven, her father's consolation and pet; when he saw\r\nGoneril artfully torment the little innocent, and then play the maternal\r\nhypocrite with it, the unfortunate man's patient long-suffering gave\r\nway. Knowing that she would neither confess nor amend, and might,\r\npossibly, become even worse than she was, he thought it but duty as a\r\nfather, to withdraw the child from her; but, loving it as he did, he\r\ncould not do so without accompanying it into domestic exile himself.\r\nWhich, hard though it was, he did. Whereupon the whole female\r\nneighborhood, who till now had little enough admired dame Goneril, broke\r\nout in indignation against a husband, who, without assigning a cause,\r\ncould deliberately abandon the wife of his bosom, and sharpen the sting\r\nto her, too, by depriving her of the solace of retaining her offspring.\r\nTo all this, self-respect, with Christian charity towards Goneril, long\r\nkept the unfortunate man dumb. And well had it been had he continued so;\r\nfor when, driven to desperation, he hinted something of the truth of the\r\ncase, not a soul would credit it; while for Goneril, she pronounced all\r\nhe said to be a malicious invention. Ere long, at the suggestion of some\r\nwoman's-rights women, the injured wife began a suit, and, thanks to able\r\ncounsel and accommodating testimony, succeeded in such a way, as not\r\nonly to recover custody of the child, but to get such a settlement\r\nawarded upon a separation, as to make penniless the unfortunate man (so\r\nhe averred), besides, through the legal sympathy she enlisted, effecting\r\na judicial blasting of his private reputation. What made it yet more\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJKFFC66PQC4NV54P2R52","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AK9Y5BJQ7CHVEE6SNTKP6","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AKAH8T16HTXMR8CA5VWE0","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:59.930Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:07.919Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}