{"id":"01KG8AM4QVDWEH4MM4J44A73HQ","cid":"bafkreibw5fh35yobhrizndz7qwcncqiubpwcg52xih6u3vtssdmaaoz4ue","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":6326,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:26.985Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 11","source_file":"01KG89J1FFTGRE9J93Z3K29NGY","start_line":6255,"text":"so lonesome now; day after day, all the day long, dear William is gone;\r\nand all the damp day long grief drizzles and drizzles down on my soul.\r\nBut I pray to God to forgive me for this; and for the rest, manage it as\r\nwell as I may.’\r\n\r\nBitter and mouldy is the ‘Poor Man’s Pudding,’ groaned I to myself, half\r\nchoked with but one little mouthful of it, which would hardly go down.\r\n\r\nI could stay no longer to hear of sorrows for which the sincerest\r\nsympathies could give no adequate relief; of a fond persuasion, to which\r\nthere could be furnished no further proof than already was had--a\r\npersuasion, too, of that sort which much speaking is sure more or less\r\nto mar; of causeless self-upbraidings, which no expostulations could\r\nhave dispelled. I offered no pay for hospitalities gratuitous and\r\nhonourable as those of a prince. I knew that such offerings would have\r\nbeen more than declined; charity resented.\r\n\r\nThe native American poor never lose their delicacy or pride; hence,\r\nthough unreduced to the physical degradation of the European pauper,\r\nthey yet suffer more in mind than the poor of any other people in the\r\nworld. Those peculiar social sensibilities nourished by our own peculiar\r\npolitical principles, while they enhance the true dignity of a\r\nprosperous American, do but minister to the added wretchedness of the\r\nunfortunate; first, by prohibiting their acceptance of what little\r\nrandom relief charity may offer; and, second, by furnishing them with\r\nthe keenest appreciation of the smarting distinction between their ideal\r\nof universal equality and their grindstone experience of the practical\r\nmisery and infamy of poverty--a misery and infamy which is, ever has\r\nbeen, and ever will be, precisely the same in India, England, and\r\nAmerica.\r\n\r\nUnder pretence that my journey called me forthwith, I bade the dame\r\ngood-bye; shook her cold hand; looked my last into her blue, resigned\r\neye, and went out into the wet. But cheerless as it was, and damp, damp,\r\ndamp--the heavy atmosphere charged with all sorts of incipiencies--I yet\r\nbecame conscious, by the suddenness of the contrast, that the house air\r\nI had quitted was laden down with that peculiar deleterious quality, the\r\nheight of which--insufferable to some visitants--will be found in a\r\npoor-house ward.\r\n\r\nThis ill-ventilation in winter of the rooms of the poor--a thing, too,\r\nso stubbornly persisted in--is usually charged upon them as their\r\ndisgraceful neglect of the most simple means to health. But the instinct\r\nof the poor is wiser than we think. The air which ventilates, likewise\r\n_cools_. And to any shiverer, ill-ventilated warmth is better than\r\nwell-ventilated cold. Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity\r\nover humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits\r\nof the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed.\r\n\r\n              •         •         •         •         •         •\r\n\r\n‘Blandmour,’ said I that evening, as after tea I sat on his comfortable\r\nsofa, before a blazing fire, with one of his two ruddy little children\r\non my knee, ‘you are not what may rightly be called a rich man; you have\r\na fair competence; no more. Is it not so? Well, then, I do not include\r\n_you_, when I say, that if ever a Rich Man speaks prosperously to me of\r\na Poor Man, I shall set it down as----I won’t mention the word.’\r\n\r\n\r\n                             PICTURE SECOND\r\n\r\n                           RICH MAN’S CRUMBS\r\n\r\nIn the year 1814, during the summer following my first taste of the\r\n‘Poor Man’s Pudding,’ a sea voyage was recommended to me by my\r\nphysician. The battle of Waterloo having closed the long drama of\r\nNapoleon’s wars, many strangers were visiting Europe. I arrived in\r\nLondon at the time the victorious princes were there assembled enjoying\r\nthe Arabian Nights’ hospitalities of a grateful and gorgeous\r\naristocracy, and the courtliest of gentlemen and kings--George the\r\nPrince Regent.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 11"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJVQ8D7NW8GVW8QE4DYG9","peer_type":"segment","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1FFTGRE9J93Z3K29NGY","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AM4QTRCT93D2VDZFM4Q0D","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AM5C78TTGQPADDMY47YVC","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:27.387Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:41.409Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}