{"id":"01KG8AKN1ZH7N0TH40643AXDRD","cid":"bafkreiebkgn6byn63kzlhac5fnggxybpnps3imil2tzzpupprefyguykhi","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":1845,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:09.927Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KG89J1954N2G0NAERBNJXEX9","start_line":1794,"text":"Like a grand, ground swell, Homer’s old organ rolls its vast volumes\r\nunder the light frothy wave-crests of Anacreon and Hafiz; and high over\r\nmy ocean, sweet Shakespeare soars, like all the larks of the spring.\r\nThroned on my seaside, like Canute, bearded Ossian smites his hoar\r\nharp, wreathed with wild-flowers, in which warble my Wallers; blind\r\nMilton sings bass to my Petrarchs and Priors, and laureate crown me\r\nwith bays.\r\n\r\nIn me, many worthies recline, and converse. I list to St. Paul who\r\nargues the doubts of Montaigne; Julian the Apostate cross-questions\r\nAugustine; and Thomas-a-Kempis unrolls his old black letters for all to\r\ndecipher. Zeno murmurs maxims beneath the hoarse shout of Democritus;\r\nand though Democritus laugh loud and long, and the sneer of Pyrrho be\r\nseen; yet, divine Plato, and Proclus, and, Verulam are of my counsel;\r\nand Zoroaster whispered me before I was born. I walk a world that is\r\nmine; and enter many nations, as Mingo Park rested in African cots; I\r\nam served like Bajazet: Bacchus my butler, Virgil my minstrel, Philip\r\nSidney my page. My memory is a life beyond birth; my memory, my library\r\nof the Vatican, its alcoves all endless perspectives, eve-tinted by\r\ncross-lights from Middle-Age oriels.\r\n\r\nAnd as the great Mississippi musters his watery nations: Ohio, with all\r\nhis leagued streams; Missouri, bringing down in torrents the clans from\r\nthe highlands; Arkansas, his Tartar rivers from the plain;—so, with all\r\nthe past and present pouring in me, I roll down my billow from afar.\r\n\r\nYet not I, but another: God is my Lord; and though many satellites\r\nrevolve around me, I and all mine revolve round the great central\r\nTruth, sun-like, fixed and luminous forever in the foundationless\r\nfirmament.\r\n\r\nFire flames on my tongue; and though of old the Bactrian prophets were\r\nstoned, yet the stoners in oblivion sleep. But whoso stones me, shall\r\nbe as Erostratus, who put torch to the temple; though Genghis Khan with\r\nCambyses combine to obliterate him, his name shall be extant in the\r\nmouth of the last man that lives. And if so be, down unto death, whence\r\nI came, will I go, like Xenophon retreating on Greece, all Persia\r\nbrandishing her spears in his rear.\r\n\r\nMy cheek blanches white while I write; I start at the scratch of my\r\npen; my own mad brood of eagles devours me; fain would I unsay this\r\naudacity; but an iron-mailed hand clenches mine in a vice, and prints\r\ndown every letter in my spite. Fain would I hurl off this Dionysius\r\nthat rides me; my thoughts crush me down till I groan; in far fields I\r\nhear the song of the reaper, while I slave and faint in this cell. The\r\nfever runs through me like lava; my hot brain burns like a coal; and\r\nlike many a monarch, I am less to be envied, than the veriest hind in\r\nthe land.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJQ1A4K4GFGNQ1AXPTH5Y","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1954N2G0NAERBNJXEX9","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKN1ZFX2KDZ26NMAPARPK","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:11.327Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:20.427Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}