{"id":"01KG8AKC4DB1Y48VNFCJJE6CJN","cid":"bafkreiemnsujy2khji5b2bspxunsl6lyqz2g2juj6gyzewgucb5bjle3li","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":10470,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:57.726Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","start_line":10401,"text":"CHAPTER XLV.\r\n\r\nTHE COSMOPOLITAN INCREASES IN SERIOUSNESS.\r\n\r\n\r\nIn the middle of the gentleman's cabin burned a solar lamp, swung from\r\nthe ceiling, and whose shade of ground glass was all round fancifully\r\nvariegated, in transparency, with the image of a horned altar, from\r\nwhich flames rose, alternate with the figure of a robed man, his head\r\nencircled by a halo. The light of this lamp, after dazzlingly striking\r\non marble, snow-white and round--the slab of a centre-table beneath--on\r\nall sides went rippling off with ever-diminishing distinctness, till,\r\nlike circles from a stone dropped in water, the rays died dimly away in\r\nthe furthest nook of the place.\r\n\r\nHere and there, true to their place, but not to their function, swung\r\nother lamps, barren planets, which had either gone out from exhaustion,\r\nor been extinguished by such occupants of berths as the light annoyed,\r\nor who wanted to sleep, not see.\r\n\r\nBy a perverse man, in a berth not remote, the remaining lamp would have\r\nbeen extinguished as well, had not a steward forbade, saying that the\r\ncommands of the captain required it to be kept burning till the natural\r\nlight of day should come to relieve it. This steward, who, like many in\r\nhis vocation, was apt to be a little free-spoken at times, had been\r\nprovoked by the man's pertinacity to remind him, not only of the sad\r\nconsequences which might, upon occasion, ensue from the cabin being left\r\nin darkness, but, also, of the circumstance that, in a place full of\r\nstrangers, to show one's self anxious to produce darkness there, such an\r\nanxiety was, to say the least, not becoming. So the lamp--last survivor\r\nof many--burned on, inwardly blessed by those in some berths, and\r\ninwardly execrated by those in others.\r\n\r\nKeeping his lone vigils beneath his lone lamp, which lighted his book on\r\nthe table, sat a clean, comely, old man, his head snowy as the marble,\r\nand a countenance like that which imagination ascribes to good Simeon,\r\nwhen, having at last beheld the Master of Faith, he blessed him and\r\ndeparted in peace. From his hale look of greenness in winter, and his\r\nhands ingrained with the tan, less, apparently, of the present summer,\r\nthan of accumulated ones past, the old man seemed a well-to-do farmer,\r\nhappily dismissed, after a thrifty life of activity, from the fields to\r\nthe fireside--one of those who, at three-score-and-ten, are\r\nfresh-hearted as at fifteen; to whom seclusion gives a boon more blessed\r\nthan knowledge, and at last sends them to heaven untainted by the world,\r\nbecause ignorant of it; just as a countryman putting up at a London inn,\r\nand never stirring out of it as a sight-seer, will leave London at last\r\nwithout once being lost in its fog, or soiled by its mud.\r\n\r\nRedolent from the barber's shop, as any bridegroom tripping to the\r\nbridal chamber might come, and by his look of cheeriness seeming to\r\ndispense a sort of morning through the night, in came the cosmopolitan;\r\nbut marking the old man, and how he was occupied, he toned himself down,\r\nand trod softly, and took a seat on the other side of the table, and\r\nsaid nothing. Still, there was a kind of waiting expression about him.\r\n\r\n\"Sir,\" said the old man, after looking up puzzled at him a moment,\r\n\"sir,\" said he, \"one would think this was a coffee-house, and it was\r\nwar-time, and I had a newspaper here with great news, and the only copy\r\nto be had, you sit there looking at me so eager.\"\r\n\r\n\"And so you _have_ good news there, sir--the very best of good news.\"\r\n\r\n\"Too good to be true,\" here came from one of the curtained berths.\r\n\r\n\"Hark!\" said the cosmopolitan. \"Some one talks in his sleep.\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes,\" said the old man, \"and you--_you_ seem to be talking in a dream.\r\nWhy speak you, sir, of news, and all that, when you must see this is a\r\nbook I have here--the Bible, not a newspaper?\"\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJNPWTERPN2J92AFP8QXB","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKC4FFC4NG66A8D2BFHA0","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:02.189Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:15.681Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}