{"id":"01KG8AKW8YEGRGYPHFVN7X7Z2Z","cid":"bafkreicepn723ul3fwebx2eauk7jixgznnngz325jruqkh7twzxg3cbj2m","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":6893,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:18.539Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KG89J1HYC04JWXEK48P07WPK","start_line":6831,"text":"men, grew as in hot-beds the nutritious Taro.\r\n\r\nToil is man’s allotment; toil of brain, or toil of hands, or a grief\r\nthat’s more than either, the grief and sin of idleness. But when man\r\ntoils and slays himself for masters who withhold the life he gives to\r\nthem—then, then, the soul screams out, and every sinew cracks. So with\r\nthese poor serfs. And few of them could choose but be the brutes they\r\nseemed.\r\n\r\nNow needs it to be said, that Odo was no land of pleasure unalloyed,\r\nand plenty without a pause?—Odo, in whose lurking-places infants turned\r\nfrom breasts, whence flowed no nourishment.—Odo, in whose inmost\r\nhaunts, dark groves were brooding, passing which you heard most dismal\r\ncries, and voices cursing Media. There, men were scourged; their crime,\r\na heresy; the heresy, that Media was no demigod. For this they\r\nshrieked. Their fathers shrieked before; their fathers, who, tormented,\r\nsaid, “Happy we to groan, that our children’s children may be glad.”\r\nBut their children’s children howled. Yet these, too, echoed previous\r\ngenerations, and loudly swore, “The pit that’s dug for us may prove\r\nanother’s grave.”\r\n\r\nBut let all pass. To look at, and to roam about of holidays, Odo seemed\r\na happy land. The palm-trees waved—though here and there you marked one\r\nsear and palsy-smitten; the flowers bloomed—though dead ones moldered\r\nin decay; the waves ran up the strand in glee—though, receding, they\r\nsometimes left behind bones mixed with shells.\r\n\r\nBut else than these, no sign of death was seen throughout the isle. Did\r\nmen in Odo live for aye? Was Ponce de Leon’s fountain there? For near\r\nand far, you saw no ranks and files of graves, no generations harvested\r\nin winrows. In Odo, no hard-hearted nabob slept beneath a gentle\r\nepitaph; no requiescat-in-pace mocked a sinner damned; no memento-mori\r\nadmonished men to live while yet they might. Here Death hid his skull;\r\nand hid it in the sea, the common sepulcher of Odo. Not dust to dust,\r\nbut dust to brine; not hearses but canoes. For all who died upon that\r\nisle were carried out beyond the outer reef, and there were buried with\r\ntheir sires’ sires. Hence came the thought, that of gusty nights, when\r\nround the isles, and high toward heaven, flew the white reef’s rack and\r\nfoam, that then and there, kept chattering watch and ward, the myriads\r\nthat were ocean-tombed.\r\n\r\nBut why these watery obsequies?\r\n\r\nOdo was but a little isle, and must the living make way for the dead,\r\nand Life’s small colony be dislodged by Death’s grim hosts; as the\r\ngaunt tribes of Tamerlane o’erspread the tented pastures of the Khan?\r\n\r\nAnd now, what follows, said these Islanders: “Why sow corruption in the\r\nsoil which yields us life? We would not pluck our grapes from over\r\ngraves. This earth’s an urn for flowers, not for ashes.”\r\n\r\nThey said that Oro, the supreme, had made a cemetery of the sea.\r\n\r\nAnd what more glorious grave? Was Mausolus more sublimely urned? Or do\r\nthe minster-lamps that burn before the tomb of Charlemagne, show more\r\nof pomp, than all the stars, that blaze above the shipwrecked mariner?\r\n\r\nBut no more of the dead; men shrug their shoulders, and love not their\r\ncompany; though full soon we shall all have them for fellows.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJTRAYP4T7KHPC7NGJ455","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1HYC04JWXEK48P07WPK","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AM1R8R3JCT89KVYZWSR2M","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:18.718Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:31.039Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}