{"id":"01KG8AM8K54DR0G74Q6MVRFCV9","cid":"bafkreihuub7fmtf2mxfnq63gtct4qvjyqjtp5745rgmmhy52jyf55vhhcm","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":3876,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:26.981Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 7","source_file":"01KG89J1FFTGRE9J93Z3K29NGY","start_line":3817,"text":"him, being endowed with such power, to dwell day after day, and one long\r\nlonesome night after another, on the dusky hearth, only now and then\r\nbetraying his wild nature by thrusting his red tongue out of the\r\nchimney-top! True, he had done much mischief in the world, and was\r\npretty certain to do more; but his warm heart atoned for all. He was\r\nkindly to the race of man; and they pardoned his characteristic\r\nimperfections.’\r\n\r\nBut he has still other apples, not quite so ruddy, though full as\r\nripe:--apples, that have been left to wither on the tree, after the\r\npleasant autumn gathering is past. The sketch of _The Old Apple Dealer_\r\nis conceived in the subtlest spirit of sadness; he whose ‘subdued and\r\nnerveless boyhood prefigured his abortive prime, which likewise\r\ncontained within itself the prophecy and image of his lean and torpid\r\nage.’ Such touches as are in this piece cannot proceed from any common\r\nheart. They argue such a depth of tenderness, such a boundless sympathy\r\nwith all forms of being, such an omnipresent love, that we must needs\r\nsay that this Hawthorne is here almost alone in his generation,--at\r\nleast, in the artistic manifestation of these things. Still more. Such\r\ntouches as these--and many, very many similar ones, all through his\r\nchapters--furnish clues whereby we enter a little way into the\r\nintricate, profound heart where they originated. And we see that\r\nsuffering, some time or other, and in some shape or other,--this only\r\ncan enable any man to depict it in others. All over him, Hawthorne’s\r\nmelancholy rests like an Indian summer, which, though bathing a whole\r\ncountry in one softness, still reveals the distinctive hue of every\r\ntowering hill and each far-winding vale.\r\n\r\nBut it is the least part of genius that attracts admiration. Where\r\nHawthorne is known, he seems to be deemed a pleasant writer, with a\r\npleasant style,--a sequestered, harmless man, from whom any deep and\r\nweighty thing would hardly be anticipated--a man who means no meanings.\r\nBut there is no man, in whom humour and love, like mountain peaks, soar\r\nto such a rapt height as to receive the irradiations of the upper\r\nskies;--there is no man in whom humour and love are developed in that\r\nhigh form called genius; no such man can exist without also possessing,\r\nas the indispensable complement of these, a great, deep intellect, which\r\ndrops down into the universe like a plummet. Or, love and humour are\r\nonly the eyes through which such an intellect views this world. The\r\ngreat beauty in such a mind is but the product of its strength. What, to\r\nall readers, can be more charming than the piece entitled _Monsieur du\r\nMiroir_; and to a reader at all capable of fully fathoming it, what, at\r\nthe same time, can possess more mystical depth of meaning?--yes, there\r\nhe sits and looks at me,--this ‘shape of mystery,’ this ‘identical\r\nMONSIEUR DU MIROIR!’ ‘Methinks I should tremble now were his wizard\r\npower of gliding through all impediments in search of me to place him\r\nsuddenly before my eyes.’\r\n\r\nHow profound, nay, appalling, is the moral evolved by the _Earth’s\r\nHolocaust_; where--beginning with the hollow follies and affectations of\r\nthe world,--all vanities and empty theories and forms are, one after\r\nanother, and by an admirably graduated, growing comprehensiveness,\r\nthrown into the allegorical fire, till, at length, nothing is left but\r\nthe all-engendering heart of man; which remaining still unconsumed, the\r\ngreat conflagration is naught.\r\n\r\nOf a piece with this, is the _Intelligence Office_, a wondrous\r\nsymbolising of the secret workings in men’s souls. There are other\r\nsketches still more charged with ponderous import.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 7"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJVQAZF49HK19VVYQ1DXW","peer_type":"segment","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1FFTGRE9J93Z3K29NGY","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AM8K4PJ1P8TDMEW1C466Q","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AM8K5ZB43ZYPC79K37NRT","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:31.333Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:38.710Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}