{"id":"01KG8AKE1SP1XV8W78H6Q7HD22","cid":"bafkreibwhixtqnzmlyblnwtymed22djcyo3vcl3phw7e3je75hzqad723u","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":6149,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:57.722Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 3","source_file":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","start_line":6089,"text":"ones. No, no. This austerity won't do. Let me tell you too--_en\r\nconfiance_--that while revelry may not always merge into ebriety,\r\nsoberness, in too deep potations, may become a sort of sottishness.\r\nWhich sober sottishness, in my way of thinking, is only to be cured by\r\nbeginning at the other end of the horn, to tipple a little.\"\r\n\r\n\"Pray, what society of vintners and old topers are you hired to lecture\r\nfor?\"\r\n\r\n\"I fear I did not give my meaning clearly. A little story may help. The\r\nstory of the worthy old woman of Goshen, a very moral old woman, who\r\nwouldn't let her shoats eat fattening apples in fall, for fear the fruit\r\nmight ferment upon their brains, and so make them swinish. Now, during a\r\ngreen Christmas, inauspicious to the old, this worthy old woman fell\r\ninto a moping decline, took to her bed, no appetite, and refused to see\r\nher best friends. In much concern her good man sent for the doctor, who,\r\nafter seeing the patient and putting a question or two, beckoned the\r\nhusband out, and said: 'Deacon, do you want her cured?' 'Indeed I do.'\r\n'Go directly, then, and buy a jug of Santa Cruz.' 'Santa Cruz? my wife\r\ndrink Santa Cruz?' 'Either that or die.' 'But how much?' 'As much as she\r\ncan get down.' 'But she'll get drunk!' 'That's the cure.' Wise men, like\r\ndoctors, must be obeyed. Much against the grain, the sober deacon got\r\nthe unsober medicine, and, equally against her conscience, the poor old\r\nwoman took it; but, by so doing, ere long recovered health and spirits,\r\nfamous appetite, and glad again to see her friends; and having by this\r\nexperience broken the ice of arid abstinence, never afterwards kept\r\nherself a cup too low.\"\r\n\r\nThis story had the effect of surprising the bachelor into interest,\r\nthough hardly into approval.\r\n\r\n\"If I take your parable right,\" said he, sinking no little of his former\r\nchurlishness, \"the meaning is, that one cannot enjoy life with gusto\r\nunless he renounce the too-sober view of life. But since the too-sober\r\nview is, doubtless, nearer true than the too-drunken; I, who rate truth,\r\nthough cold water, above untruth, though Tokay, will stick to my earthen\r\njug.\"\r\n\r\n\"I see,\" slowly spirting upward a spiral staircase of lazy smoke, \"I\r\nsee; you go in for the lofty.\"\r\n\r\n\"How?\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, nothing! but if I wasn't afraid of prosing, I might tell another\r\nstory about an old boot in a pieman's loft, contracting there between\r\nsun and oven an unseemly, dry-seasoned curl and warp. You've seen such\r\nleathery old garretteers, haven't you? Very high, sober, solitary,\r\nphilosophic, grand, old boots, indeed; but I, for my part, would rather\r\nbe the pieman's trodden slipper on the ground. Talking of piemen,\r\nhumble-pie before proud-cake for me. This notion of being lone and lofty\r\nis a sad mistake. Men I hold in this respect to be like roosters; the\r\none that betakes himself to a lone and lofty perch is the hen-pecked\r\none, or the one that has the pip.\"\r\n\r\n\"You are abusive!\" cried the bachelor, evidently touched.\r\n\r\n\"Who is abused? You, or the race? You won't stand by and see the human\r\nrace abused? Oh, then, you have some respect for the human race.\"\r\n\r\n\"I have some respect for _myself_\" with a lip not so firm as before.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 3"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJM4MATQP3GZQR23SYFAP","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKDA40GX6CT6VT5ZHHTEN","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AKE1SRXJPCNTKYTJ2XB89","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:04.153Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:10.687Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}