{"id":"01KG8AKXG4CPFZ79NY4PW4R0ZA","cid":"bafkreicpwnlzqsskau5euwx2njk4shycrfgbvdjtiulavgzwngcvf7f4qa","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":8487,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:18.539Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KG89J1HYC04JWXEK48P07WPK","start_line":8446,"text":"thee what cheer beyond the grave? But they have gone to the land\r\nunknown. Meet phrase. Where is it? Not one of Oro’s priests telleth a\r\nstraight story concerning it; ’twill be hard finding their paradises.\r\nTouching the life of Alma, in Mohi’s chronicles, ’tis related, that a\r\nman was once raised from the tomb. But rubbed he not his eyes, and\r\nstared he not most vacantly? Not one revelation did he make. Ye gods!\r\nto have been a bystander there!\r\n\r\n“At best, ’tis but a hope. But will a longing bring the thing desired?\r\nDoth dread avert its object? An instinct is no preservative. The fire I\r\nshrink from, may consume me.—But dead, and yet alive; alive, yet\r\ndead;—thus say the sages of Maramma. But die we then living? Yet if our\r\ndead fathers somewhere and somehow live, why not our unborn sons? For\r\nbackward or forward, eternity is the same; already have we been the\r\nnothing we dread to be. Icy thought! But bring it home,—it will not\r\nstay. What ho, hot heart of mine: to beat thus lustily awhile, to feel\r\nin the red rushing blood, and then be ashes,—can this be so? But peace,\r\npeace, thou liar in me, telling me I am immortal—shall I not be as\r\nthese bones? To come to this! But the balsam-dropping palms, whose\r\nboles run milk, whose plumes wave boastful in the air, they perish in\r\ntheir prime, and bow their blasted trunks. Nothing abideth; the river\r\nof yesterday floweth not to-day; the sun’s rising is a setting; living\r\nis dying; the very mountains melt; and all revolve:—systems and\r\nasteroids; the sun wheels through the zodiac, and the zodiac is a\r\nrevolution. Ah gods! in all this universal stir, am I to prove one\r\nstable thing?\r\n\r\n“Grim chiefs in skeletons, avaunt! Ye are but dust; belike the dust of\r\nbeggars; for on this bed, paupers may lie down with kings, and filch\r\ntheir skulls. This, great Marjora’s arm? No, some old paralytic’s. Ye,\r\nkings? ye, men? Where are your vouchers? I do reject your brother-hood,\r\nye libelous remains. But no, no; despise them not, oh Babbalanja! Thy\r\nown skeleton, thou thyself dost carry with thee, through this mortal\r\nlife; and aye would view it, but for kind nature’s screen; thou art\r\ndeath alive; and e’en to what’s before thee wilt thou come. Ay, thy\r\nchildren’s children will walk over thee: thou, voiceless as a calm.”\r\n\r\nAnd over the Coral Kings, Babbalanja paced in profound meditation.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJW7YA7YDNRGAR55645YY","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1HYC04JWXEK48P07WPK","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKXG4NNH9EBQF8NJQ1XDH","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:19.972Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:32.200Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}