{"id":"01KG8AMXVBNPJP6MK3JECZQ72M","cid":"bafkreid2y44kquzyuz7hcjvxkdce22lb7nfepunwn7qliptegwr2hedg4q","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":11290,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:52.924Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","start_line":11220,"text":"     \"_Urquhartian Club for the Immediate Extension of the Limits of all\r\n     Knowledge, both Human and Divine._\r\n\r\n     \"ZADOCKPRATTSVILLE,\r\n     \"_June 11th, 18--_.\r\n\r\n     \"_Author of the 'Tropical Summer,' &c._\r\n     \"HONORED AND DEAR SIR:--\r\n\r\n     \"Official duty and private inclination in this present case most\r\n     delightfully blend. What was the ardent desire of my heart, has now\r\n     by the action of the _Committee on Lectures_ become professionally\r\n     obligatory upon me. As Chairman of our _Committee on Lectures_, I\r\n     hereby beg the privilege of entreating that you will honor this\r\n     Society by lecturing before it on any subject you may choose, and\r\n     at any day most convenient to yourself. The subject of Human\r\n     Destiny we would respectfully suggest, without however at all\r\n     wishing to impede you in your own unbiased selection.\r\n\r\n     \"If you honor us by complying with this invitation, be assured,\r\n     sir, that the Committee on Lectures will take the best care of you\r\n     throughout your stay, and endeavor to make Zadockprattsville\r\n     agreeable to you. A carriage will be in attendance at the\r\n     Stage-house to convey yourself and luggage to the Inn, under full\r\n     escort of the _Committee on Lectures_, with the Chairman at their\r\n     head.\r\n\r\n    \"Permit me to join my private homage\r\n             To my high official consideration for you,\r\n                   And to subscribe myself\r\n                      Very humbly your servant,\r\n                            DONALD DUNDONALD.\"\r\n\r\n\r\nIII.\r\n\r\nBut it was more especially the Lecture invitations coming from\r\nvenerable, gray-headed metropolitan Societies, and indited by venerable\r\ngray-headed Secretaries, which far from elating filled the youthful\r\nPierre with the sincerest sense of humility. Lecture? lecture? such a\r\nstripling as I lecture to fifty benches, with ten gray heads on each?\r\nfive hundred gray heads in all! Shall my one, poor, inexperienced brain\r\npresume to lay down the law in a lecture to five hundred life-ripened\r\nunderstandings? It seemed too absurd for thought. Yet the five hundred,\r\nthrough their spokesman, had voluntarily extended this identical\r\ninvitation to him. Then how could it be otherwise, than that an\r\nincipient Timonism should slide into Pierre, when he considered all the\r\ndisgraceful inferences to be derived from such a fact. He called to\r\nmind, how that once upon a time, during a visit of his to the city, the\r\npolice were called out to quell a portentous riot, occasioned by the\r\nvast press and contention for seats at the first lecture of an\r\nillustrious lad of nineteen, the author of \"A Week at Coney Island.\"\r\n\r\nIt is needless to say that Pierre most conscientiously and respectfully\r\ndeclined all polite overtures of this sort.\r\n\r\nSimilar disenchantments of his cooler judgment did likewise deprive of\r\ntheir full lusciousness several other equally marked demonstrations of\r\nhis literary celebrity. Applications for autographs showered in upon\r\nhim; but in sometimes humorously gratifying the more urgent requests of\r\nthese singular people Pierre could not but feel a pang of regret, that\r\nowing to the very youthful and quite unformed character of his\r\nhandwriting, his signature did not possess that inflexible uniformity,\r\nwhich--for mere prudential reasons, if nothing more--should always mark\r\nthe hand of illustrious men. His heart thrilled with sympathetic anguish\r\nfor posterity, which would be certain to stand hopelessly perplexed\r\nbefore so many contradictory signatures of one supereminent name. Alas!\r\nposterity would be sure to conclude that they were forgeries all; that\r\nno chirographic relic of the sublime poet Glendinning survived to their\r\nmiserable times.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJTDSB3ER53PCEAPSR7B2","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AMXVFGM1HRPHJC51TAEXW","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:53.099Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:27.747Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}