{"id":"01KG8AM954G9QMG2TMZTQWFX1T","cid":"bafkreiewuqb4eqnkw6v6defp4wjodz2vr6zgtzezjae556wbenyub5dh4m","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":4429,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:26.981Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 19","source_file":"01KG89J1FFTGRE9J93Z3K29NGY","start_line":4375,"text":"a bay of the plain formed by the mountains, there rested a great flat\r\ncanopy of haze, like a pall. It was the condensed smoke of the chimneys,\r\nwith the condensed, exhaled breath of the villagers, prevented from\r\ndispersion by the imprisoning hills. It was too heavy and lifeless to\r\nmount of itself; so there it lay, between the village and the sky,\r\ndoubtless hiding many a man with the mumps, and many a queasy child.\r\n\r\nMy eye ranged over the capacious rolling country, and over the\r\nmountains, and over the village, and over a farmhouse here and there,\r\nand over woods, groves, streams, rocks, fells--and I thought to myself,\r\nwhat a slight mark, after all, does man make on this huge great earth.\r\nYet the earth makes a mark on him. What a horrid accident was that on\r\nthe Ohio, where my good friend and thirty other good fellows were sloped\r\ninto eternity at the bidding of a thick-headed engineer, who knew not a\r\nvalve from a flue. And that crash on the railroad just over yon\r\nmountains there, where two infatuate trains ran pell-mell into each\r\nother, and climbed and clawed each other’s backs; and one locomotive was\r\nfound fairly shelled, like a chick, inside of a passenger car in the\r\nantagonist train; and near a score of noble hearts, a bride and her\r\ngroom, and an innocent little infant, were all disembarked into the grim\r\nhulk of Charon, who ferried them over, all baggageless, to some\r\nclinkered iron-foundry country or other. Yet what’s the use of\r\ncomplaining? What justice of the peace will right this matter? Yea,\r\nwhat’s the use of bothering the very heavens about it? Don’t the heavens\r\nthemselves ordain these things--else they could not happen?\r\n\r\nA miserable world! Who would take the trouble to make a fortune in it,\r\nwhen he knows not how long he can keep it, for the thousand villains and\r\nasses who have the management of railroads and steamboats, and\r\ninnumerable other vital things in the world. If they would make me\r\nDictator in North America a while, I’d string them up, and hang, draw,\r\nand quarter; fry, roast, and boil; stew, grill, and devil them, like so\r\nmany turkey-legs--the rascally numskulls of stokers; I’d set them to\r\nstokering in Tartarus--I would!\r\n\r\nGreat improvements of the age! What! to call the facilitation of death\r\nand murder an improvement! Who wants to travel so fast? My grandfather\r\ndid not, and he was no fool. Hark! here comes that old dragon\r\nagain--that gigantic gad-fly of a Moloch--snort! puff! scream!--here he\r\ncomes straight-bent through these vernal woods, like the Asiatic cholera\r\ncantering on a camel. Stand aside! here he comes, the chartered\r\nmurderer! the death monopoliser! judge, jury, and hangman all together,\r\nwhose victims die always without benefit of clergy. For two hundred and\r\nfifty miles that iron fiend goes yelling through the land, crying ‘More!\r\nmore! more!’ Would that fifty conspiring mountains would fall atop of\r\nhim! And, while they were about it, would they also fall atop of that\r\nsmaller dunning fiend, my creditor, who frightens the life out of me\r\nmore than any locomotive--a lantern-jawed rascal, who seems to run on a\r\nrailroad track, too, and duns me even on Sunday, all the way to church\r\nand back, and comes and sits in the same pew with me, and pretending to\r\nbe polite and hand me the prayer-book opened at the proper place, pokes\r\nhis pesky bill under my nose in the very midst of my devotions, and so\r\nshoves himself between me and salvation; for how can one keep his temper\r\non such occasions?\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 19"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJVQAZF49HK19VVYQ1DXW","peer_type":"segment","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1FFTGRE9J93Z3K29NGY","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AM9516RPGY300F1TJKC6Q","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AM954MDYGCS6X237J1HAV","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:31.908Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:39.037Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}