{"id":"01KG8AKDA41H1G37GNHX9QMS64","cid":"bafkreihhi5mxq4jgd6trgfd4ps6odsxydvod3dlfx2wunvom24vhiu4xde","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":5791,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:57.722Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 10","source_file":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","start_line":5713,"text":"or expedient for you to know, or than, in the fair course of life, you\r\ncould have honestly come to know. I am of opinion you should be served\r\nlike a Jew in the middle ages with his gold; this knowledge of yours,\r\nwhich you haven't enough knowledge to know how to make a right use of,\r\nit should be taken from you. And so I have been thinking all along.\"\r\n\r\n\"You are merry, sir. But you have a little looked into St. Augustine I\r\nsuppose.\"\r\n\r\n\"St. Augustine on Original Sin is my text book. But you, I ask again,\r\nwhere do you find time or inclination for these out-of-the-way\r\nspeculations? In fact, your whole talk, the more I think of it, is\r\naltogether unexampled and extraordinary.\"\r\n\r\n\"Respected sir, have I not already informed you that the quite new\r\nmethod, the strictly philosophical one, on which our office is founded,\r\nhas led me and my associates to an enlarged study of mankind. It was my\r\nfault, if I did not, likewise, hint, that these studies directed always\r\nto the scientific procuring of good servants of all sorts, boys\r\nincluded, for the kind gentlemen, our patrons--that these studies, I\r\nsay, have been conducted equally among all books of all libraries, as\r\namong all men of all nations. Then, you rather like St. Augustine, sir?\"\r\n\r\n\"Excellent genius!\"\r\n\r\n\"In some points he was; yet, how comes it that under his own hand, St.\r\nAugustine confesses that, until his thirtieth year, he was a very sad\r\ndog?\"\r\n\r\n\"A saint a sad dog?\"\r\n\r\n\"Not the saint, but the saint's irresponsible little forerunner--the\r\nboy.\"\r\n\r\n\"All boys are rascals, and so are all men,\" again flying off at his\r\ntangent; \"my name is Pitch; I stick to what I say.\"\r\n\r\n\"Ah, sir, permit me--when I behold you on this mild summer's eve, thus\r\neccentrically clothed in the skins of wild beasts, I cannot but conclude\r\nthat the equally grim and unsuitable habit of your mind is likewise but\r\nan eccentric assumption, having no basis in your genuine soul, no more\r\nthan in nature herself.\"\r\n\r\n\"Well, really, now--really,\" fidgeted the bachelor, not unaffected in\r\nhis conscience by these benign personalities, \"really, really, now, I\r\ndon't know but that I may have been a little bit too hard upon those\r\nfive and thirty boys of mine.\"\r\n\r\n\"Glad to find you a little softening, sir. Who knows now, but that\r\nflexile gracefulness, however questionable at the time of that thirtieth\r\nboy of yours, might have been the silky husk of the most solid qualities\r\nof maturity. It might have been with him as with the ear of the Indian\r\ncorn.\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, yes, yes,\" excitedly cried the bachelor, as the light of this new\r\nillustration broke in, \"yes, yes; and now that I think of it, how often\r\nI've sadly watched my Indian corn in May, wondering whether such sickly,\r\nhalf-eaten sprouts, could ever thrive up into the stiff, stately spear\r\nof August.\"\r\n\r\n\"A most admirable reflection, sir, and you have only, according to the\r\nanalogical theory first started by our office, to apply it to that\r\nthirtieth boy in question, and see the result. Had you but kept that\r\nthirtieth boy--been patient with his sickly virtues, cultivated them,\r\nhoed round them, why what a glorious guerdon would have been yours, when\r\nat last you should have had a St. Augustine for an ostler.\"\r\n\r\n\"Really, really--well, I am glad I didn't send him to jail, as at first\r\nI intended.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh that would have been too bad. Grant he was vicious. The petty vices\r\nof boys are like the innocent kicks of colts, as yet imperfectly broken.\r\nSome boys know not virtue only for the same reason they know not French;\r\nit was never taught them. Established upon the basis of parental\r\ncharity, juvenile asylums exist by law for the benefit of lads convicted\r\nof acts which, in adults, would have received other requital. Why?\r\nBecause, do what they will, society, like our office, at bottom has a\r\nChristian confidence in boys. And all this we say to our patrons.\"\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 10"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJM4RS4GSX8JEXTB47AGF","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKDA4X0EVW621YTM13G3T","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AKDAG4E6KTF31X4T17F80","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:03.396Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:10.501Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}