{"id":"01KG8AKFM0YDAP5EBH990CSN6H","cid":"bafkreidhnsnystwks5kqyflgofht6h5doxlk3yxgd3ldeps65z73btzj2y","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":6958,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:05.594Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KG89J1DKC9HHJRKY25JZBEXW","start_line":6918,"text":"the moulds, begat a corresponding disposition in the moulder, who, by\r\nheedlessly slapping that sad dough, as stuff of little worth, was\r\nthereby taught, in his meditations, to slap, with similar heedlessness,\r\nhis own sadder fortunes, as of still less vital consideration. To these\r\nmuddy philosophers, men and bricks were equally of clay. “What\r\nsignifies who we be—dukes or ditchers?” thought the moulders; “all is\r\nvanity and clay.”\r\n\r\nSo slap, slap, slap, care-free and negligent, with bitter unconcern,\r\nthese dismal desperadoes flapped down the dough. If this recklessness\r\nwere vicious of them, be it so; but their vice was like that weed which\r\nbut grows on barren ground; enrich the soil, and it disappears.\r\n\r\nFor thirteen weary weeks, lorded over by the taskmaster, Israel toiled\r\nin his pit. Though this condemned him to a sort of earthy dungeon, or\r\ngravedigger’s hole, while he worked, yet even when liberated to his\r\nmeals, naught of a cheery nature greeted him. The yard was encamped,\r\nwith all its endless rows of tented sheds, and kilns, and mills, upon a\r\nwild waste moor, belted round by bogs and fens. The blank horizon, like\r\na rope, coiled round the whole.\r\n\r\nSometimes the air was harsh and bleak; the ridged and mottled sky\r\nlooked scourged, or cramping fogs set in from sea, for leagues around,\r\nferreting out each rheumatic human bone, and racking it; the sciatic\r\nlimpers shivered; their aguish rags sponged up the mists. No shelter,\r\nthough it hailed. The sheds were for the bricks. Unless, indeed,\r\naccording to the phrase, each man was a “brick,” which, in sober\r\nscripture, was the case; brick is no bad name for any son of Adam; Eden\r\nwas but a brickyard; what is a mortal but a few luckless shovelfuls of\r\nclay, moulded in a mould, laid out on a sheet to dry, and ere long\r\nquickened into his queer caprices by the sun? Are not men built into\r\ncommunities just like bricks into a wall? Consider the great wall of\r\nChina: ponder the great populace of Pekin. As man serves bricks, so God\r\nhim, building him up by billions into edifices of his purposes. Man\r\nattains not to the nobility of a brick, unless taken in the aggregate.\r\nYet is there a difference in brick, whether quick or dead; which, for\r\nthe last, we now shall see.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJJRTSPPV0WM71TZXDPYD","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1DKC9HHJRKY25JZBEXW","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKFKT8EWBDH28D6REC8RV","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:05.760Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:18.536Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}