{"id":"01KG8AKFNHT0EZM5SPVZA1KPN1","cid":"bafkreifimdydgxbvymsapnxpuz7nfuxbed3sdgjbn4gxfb6lttbeupfls4","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":282,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:05.590Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 3","source_file":"01KG89J1DKC9HHJRKY25JZBEXW","start_line":237,"text":"here and there; like knots of violets the blue-birds sport in clusters\r\nupon the grass; while hurrying from the pasture to the grove, the red\r\nrobin seems an incendiary putting torch to the trees. Meanwhile the air\r\nis vocal with their hymns, and your own soul joys in the general joy.\r\nLike a stranger in an orchestra, you cannot help singing yourself when\r\nall around you raise such hosannas.\r\n\r\nBut in autumn, those gay northerners, the birds, return to their\r\nsouthern plantations. The mountains are left bleak and sere. Solitude\r\nsettles down upon them in drizzling mists. The traveller is beset, at\r\nperilous turns, by dense masses of fog. He emerges for a moment into\r\nmore penetrable air; and passing some gray, abandoned house, sees the\r\nlofty vapors plainly eddy by its desolate door; just as from the plain\r\nyou may see it eddy by the pinnacles of distant and lonely heights. Or,\r\ndismounting from his frightened horse, he leads him down some scowling\r\nglen, where the road steeply dips among grim rocks, only to rise as\r\nabruptly again; and as he warily picks his way, uneasy at the menacing\r\nscene, he sees some ghost-like object looming through the mist at the\r\nroadside; and wending towards it, beholds a rude white stone, uncouthly\r\ninscribed, marking the spot where, some fifty or sixty years ago, some\r\nfarmer was upset in his wood-sled, and perished beneath the load.\r\n\r\nIn winter this region is blocked up with snow. Inaccessible and\r\nimpassable, those wild, unfrequented roads, which in August are\r\novergrown with high grass, in December are drifted to the arm-pit with\r\nthe white fleece from the sky. As if an ocean rolled between man and\r\nman, intercommunication is often suspended for weeks and weeks.\r\n\r\nSuch, at this day, is the country which gave birth to our hero:\r\nprophetically styled Israel by the good Puritans, his parents, since,\r\nfor more than forty years, poor Potter wandered in the wild wilderness\r\nof the world’s extremest hardships and ills.\r\n\r\nHow little he thought, when, as a boy, hunting after his father’s stray\r\ncattle among these New England hills he himself like a beast should be\r\nhunted through half of Old England, as a runaway rebel. Or, how could\r\nhe ever have dreamed, when involved in the autumnal vapors of these\r\nmountains, that worse bewilderments awaited him three thousand miles\r\nacross the sea, wandering forlorn in the coal- foes of London. But so\r\nit was destined to be. This little boy of the hills, born in sight of\r\nthe sparkling Housatonic, was to linger out the best part of his life a\r\nprisoner or a pauper upon the grimy banks of the Thames.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 3"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJHFMBAB9MB1FX78RYMZR","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1DKC9HHJRKY25JZBEXW","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKFNMVPN79MH0KNGE2B4T","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:05.809Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:13.097Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}