{"id":"01KG8AK9ZTWNVS2DAQZ0GN3VW3","cid":"bafkreifh5lncc4cduht54qerkzza2qzm2xw66azevj2ufauo3l3iachsre","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":8995,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:57.725Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 3","source_file":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","start_line":8928,"text":"\"When all is said then, what good have I of your friendship, regarded in\r\nwhat light you will?\"\r\n\r\n\"The good which is in the philosophy of Mark Winsome, as reduced to\r\npractice by a practical disciple.\"\r\n\r\n\"And why don't you add, much good may the philosophy of Mark Winsome do\r\nme? Ah,\" turning invokingly, \"what is friendship, if it be not the\r\nhelping hand and the feeling heart, the good Samaritan pouring out at\r\nneed the purse as the vial!\"\r\n\r\n\"Now, my dear Frank, don't be childish. Through tears never did man see\r\nhis way in the dark. I should hold you unworthy that sincere friendship\r\nI bear you, could I think that friendship in the ideal is too lofty for\r\nyou to conceive. And let me tell you, my dear Frank, that you would\r\nseriously shake the foundations of our love, if ever again you should\r\nrepeat the present scene. The philosophy, which is mine in the strongest\r\nway, teaches plain-dealing. Let me, then, now, as at the most suitable\r\ntime, candidly disclose certain circumstances you seem in ignorance of.\r\nThough our friendship began in boyhood, think not that, on my side at\r\nleast, it began injudiciously. Boys are little men, it is said. You, I\r\njuvenilely picked out for my friend, for your favorable points at the\r\ntime; not the least of which were your good manners, handsome dress, and\r\nyour parents' rank and repute of wealth. In short, like any grown man,\r\nboy though I was, I went into the market and chose me my mutton, not for\r\nits leanness, but its fatness. In other words, there seemed in you, the\r\nschoolboy who always had silver in his pocket, a reasonable probability\r\nthat you would never stand in lean need of fat succor; and if my early\r\nimpression has not been verified by the event, it is only because of\r\nthe caprice of fortune producing a fallibility of human expectations,\r\nhowever discreet.'\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, that I should listen to this cold-blooded disclosure!\"\r\n\r\n\"A little cold blood in your ardent veins, my dear Frank, wouldn't do\r\nyou any harm, let me tell you. Cold-blooded? You say that, because my\r\ndisclosure seems to involve a vile prudence on my side. But not so. My\r\nreason for choosing you in part for the points I have mentioned, was\r\nsolely with a view of preserving inviolate the delicacy of the\r\nconnection. For--do but think of it--what more distressing to delicate\r\nfriendship, formed early, than your friend's eventually, in manhood,\r\ndropping in of a rainy night for his little loan of five dollars or so?\r\nCan delicate friendship stand that? And, on the other side, would\r\ndelicate friendship, so long as it retained its delicacy, do that? Would\r\nyou not instinctively say of your dripping friend in the entry, 'I have\r\nbeen deceived, fraudulently deceived, in this man; he is no true friend\r\nthat, in platonic love to demand love-rites?'\"\r\n\r\n\"And rites, doubly rights, they are, cruel Charlie!\"\r\n\r\n\"Take it how you will, heed well how, by too importunately claiming\r\nthose rights, as you call them, you shake those foundations I hinted of.\r\nFor though, as it turns out, I, in my early friendship, built me a fair\r\nhouse on a poor site; yet such pains and cost have I lavished on that\r\nhouse, that, after all, it is dear to me. No, I would not lose the sweet\r\nboon of your friendship, Frank. But beware.\"\r\n\r\n\"And of what? Of being in need? Oh, Charlie! you talk not to a god, a\r\nbeing who in himself holds his own estate, but to a man who, being a\r\nman, is the sport of fate's wind and wave, and who mounts towards heaven\r\nor sinks towards hell, as the billows roll him in trough or on crest.\"\r\n\r\n\"Tut! Frank. Man is no such poor devil as that comes to--no poor\r\ndrifting sea-weed of the universe. Man has a soul; which, if he will,\r\nputs him beyond fortune's finger and the future's spite. Don't whine\r\nlike fortune's whipped dog, Frank, or by the heart of a true friend, I\r\nwill cut ye.\"\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 3"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJNPWP0B2HPCXT5FFMVZS","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AK9ZTVK6J3BFBT7ZA8HYM","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AK9ZT5DZ715QMG99VEJBE","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:59.994Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:13.929Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}