{"id":"01KG8AKBZQ8XGGD4XTNVY114WV","cid":"bafkreiejx3t2x3egm5hzesxoftkvylbdfsizvhvnmdkh2rvp2xojewgwhy","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":5402,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:56.336Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J1C1N72JCD0ZBGTBX0EX","start_line":5330,"text":"THE FIDDLER\r\n\r\n\r\nSo my poem is damned, and immortal fame is not for me! I am nobody\r\nforever and ever. Intolerable fate!\r\n\r\nSnatching my hat, I dashed down the criticism and rushed out into\r\nBroadway, where enthusiastic throngs were crowding to a circus in a\r\nside-street near by, very recently started, and famous for a capital\r\nclown.\r\n\r\nPresently my old friend Standard rather boisterously accosted me.\r\n\r\n\"Well met, Helmstone, my boy! Ah! what's the matter? Haven't been\r\ncommitting murder? Ain't flying justice? You look wild!\"\r\n\r\n\"You have seen it, then!\" said I, of course referring to the criticism.\r\n\r\n\"Oh, yes; I was there at the morning performance. Great clown, I assure\r\nyou. But here comes Hautboy. Hautboy--Helmstone.\"\r\n\r\nWithout having time or inclination to resent so mortifying a mistake, I\r\nwas instantly soothed as I gazed on the face of the new acquaintance\r\nso unceremoniously introduced. His person was short and full, with a\r\njuvenile, animated cast to it. His complexion rurally ruddy; his eye\r\nsincere, cheery, and gray. His hair alone betrayed that he was not an\r\novergrown boy. From his hair I set him down as forty or more.\r\n\r\n\"Come, Standard,\" he gleefully cried to my friend, \"are you not going\r\nto the circus? The clown is inimitable, they say. Come, Mr. Helmstone,\r\ntoo--come both; and circus over, we'll take a nice stew and punch at\r\nTaylor's.\"\r\n\r\nThe sterling content, good-humor, and extraordinary ruddy, sincere\r\nexpression of this most singular new acquaintance acted upon me like\r\nmagic. It seemed mere loyalty to human nature to accept an invitation\r\nfrom so unmistakably kind and honest a heart.\r\n\r\nDuring the circus performance I kept my eye more on Hautboy than on the\r\ncelebrated clown. Hautboy was the sight for me. Such genuine enjoyment\r\nas his struck me to the soul with a sense of the reality of the thing\r\ncalled happiness. The jokes of the clown he seemed to roll under his\r\ntongue as ripe magnumbonums. Now the foot, now the hand, was employed\r\nto attest his grateful applause. At any hit more than ordinary, he\r\nturned upon Standard and me to see if his rare pleasure was shared.\r\nIn a man of forty I saw a boy of twelve; and this too without the\r\nslightest abatement of my respect. Because all was so honest and\r\nnatural, every expression and attitude so graceful with genuine\r\ngood-nature, that the marvelous juvenility of Hautboy assumed a sort\r\nof divine and immortal air, like that of some forever youthful god of\r\nGreece.\r\n\r\nBut much as I gazed upon Hautboy, and much as I admired his air, yet\r\nthat desperate mood in which I had first rushed from the house had not\r\nso entirely departed as not to molest me with momentary returns. But\r\nfrom these relapses I would rouse myself, and swiftly glance round\r\nthe broad amphitheatre of eagerly interested and all-applauding human\r\nfaces. Hark! claps, thumps, deafening huzzas; the vast assembly seemed\r\nfrantic with acclamation; and what, mused I, has caused all this? Why,\r\nthe clown only comically grinned with one of his extra grins.\r\n\r\nThen I repeated in my mind that sublime passage in my poem, in which\r\nCleothemes the Argive vindicates the justice of the war. Ay, ay,\r\nthought I to myself, did I now leap into the ring there, and repeat\r\nthat identical passage, nay, enact the whole tragic poem before them,\r\nwould they applaud the poet as they applaud the clown? No! They would\r\nhoot me, and call me doting or mad. Then what does this prove? Your\r\ninfatuation or their insensibility? Perhaps both; but indubitably the\r\nfirst. But why wail? Do you seek admiration from the admirers of a\r\nbuffoon? Call to mind the saying of the Athenian, who, when the people\r\nvociferously applauded in the forum, asked his friend in a whisper,\r\nwhat foolish thing had he said?\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJK5EG57W2NF2EKDGD944","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1C1N72JCD0ZBGTBX0EX","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKBZMBW05FG9WNEAAJXCG","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:02.039Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:09.620Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}