{"id":"01KG8AKRPT540RS3CCN60EFK8B","cid":"bafkreih4tmipcs534oodbctdevwn3kkgqudkgbfxfxfzewd27pykgmj26i","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":5881,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:14.842Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KG89J1GP71YDJ60P8SRH97MF","start_line":5833,"text":"look back upon the period here spoken of with a swelling feeling of\r\nimmeasurable superiority and pride, I am filled with a comical sadness\r\nat the vanity of all human exaltation. For the cope-stone of to-day is\r\nthe corner-stone of tomorrow; and as St. Peter’s church was built in\r\ngreat part of the ruins of old Rome, so in all our erections, however\r\nimposing, we but form quarries and supply ignoble materials for the\r\ngrander domes of posterity.\r\n\r\nAnd even as this old guide-book boasts of the, to us, insignificant\r\nLiverpool of fifty years ago, the New York guidebooks are now vaunting\r\nof the magnitude of a town, whose future inhabitants, multitudinous as\r\nthe pebbles on the beach, and girdled in with high walls and towers,\r\nflanking endless avenues of opulence and taste, will regard all our\r\nBroadways and Bowerys as but the paltry nucleus to their Nineveh. From\r\nfar up the Hudson, beyond Harlem River, where the young saplings are\r\nnow growing, that will overarch their lordly mansions with broad\r\nboughs, centuries old; they may send forth explorers to penetrate into\r\nthe then obscure and smoky alleys of the Fifth Avenue and\r\nFourteenth-street; and going still farther south, may exhume the\r\npresent Doric Custom-house, and quote it as a proof that their high and\r\nmighty metropolis enjoyed a Hellenic antiquity.\r\n\r\nAs I am extremely loth to omit giving a specimen of the dignified style\r\nof this _“Picture of Liverpool,”_ so different from the brief, pert,\r\nand unclerkly hand-books to Niagara and Buffalo of the present day, I\r\nshall now insert the chapter of antiquarian researches; especially as\r\nit is entertaining in itself, and affords much valuable, and perhaps\r\nrare information, which the reader may need, concerning the famous\r\ntown, to which I made _my first voyage._ And I think that with regard\r\nto a matter, concerning which I myself am wholly ignorant, it is far\r\nbetter to quote my old friend verbatim, than to mince his substantial\r\nbaron-of-beef of information into a flimsy ragout of my own; and so,\r\npass it off as original. Yes, I will render unto my honored guide-book\r\nits due.\r\n\r\nBut how can the printer’s art so dim and mellow down the pages into a\r\nsoft sunset yellow; and to the reader’s eye, shed over the type all the\r\npleasant associations which the original carries to me!\r\n\r\nNo! by my father’s sacred memory, and all sacred privacies of fond\r\nfamily reminiscences, I will not! I will _not_ quote thee, old Morocco,\r\nbefore the cold face of the marble-hearted world; for your antiquities\r\nwould only be skipped and dishonored by shallow-minded readers; and for\r\nme, I should be charged with swelling out my volume by plagiarizing\r\nfrom a guide-book-the most vulgar and ignominious of thefts!\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJRKEDTRFD9ZJPGF6XAC8","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1GP71YDJ60P8SRH97MF","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKRPEA59C9EYRHXT1RWPA","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:15.066Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:29.738Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}