{"id":"01KG8AMXVN1F0TX6MH72JGYG40","cid":"bafkreihmhyhhtgtw5f5omrjwtob7jj7k4bbtqzeocovsgpnlcijuvsojeu","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":11598,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:52.924Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 7","source_file":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","start_line":11547,"text":"exchange for his ditties. Such cases stand upon imperishable record, and\r\nit were both folly and ingratitude to disown them.\r\n\r\nBut since the fine social position and noble patrimony of Pierre, had\r\nthus far rendered it altogether unnecessary for him to earn the least\r\nfarthing of his own in the world, whether by hand or by brain; it may\r\nseem desirable to explain a little here as we go. We shall do so, but\r\nalways including, the preamble.\r\n\r\nSometimes every possible maxim or thought seems an old one; yet it is\r\namong the elder of the things in that unaugmentable stock, that never\r\nmind what one's situation may be, however prosperous and happy, he will\r\nstill be impatient of it; he will still reach out of himself, and beyond\r\nevery present condition. So, while many a poor be-inked galley-slave,\r\ntoiling with the heavy oar of a quill, to gain something wherewithal to\r\nstave off the cravings of nature; and in his hours of morbid\r\nself-reproach, regarding his paltry wages, at all events, as an\r\nunavoidable disgrace to him; while this galley-slave of letters would\r\nhave leaped with delight--reckless of the feeble seams of his\r\npantaloons--at the most distant prospect of inheriting the broad farms\r\nof Saddle Meadows, lord of an all-sufficing income, and forever exempt\r\nfrom wearing on his hands those treacherous plague-spots of\r\nindigence--videlicet, blots from the inkstand;--Pierre himself, the\r\nundoubted and actual possessor of the things only longingly and\r\nhopelessly imagined by the other; the then top of Pierre's worldly\r\nambition, was the being able to boast that he had written such matters\r\nas publishers would pay something for in the way of a mere business\r\ntransaction, which they thought would prove profitable. Yet altogether\r\nweak and silly as this may seem in Pierre, let us preambillically\r\nexamine a little further, and see if it be so indeed.\r\n\r\nPierre was proud; and a proud man--proud with the sort of pride now\r\nmeant--ever holds but lightly those things, however beneficent, which he\r\ndid not for himself procure. Were such pride carried out to its\r\nlegitimate end, the man would eat no bread, the seeds whereof he had not\r\nhimself put into the soil, not entirely without humiliation, that even\r\nthat seed must be borrowed from some previous planter. A proud man likes\r\nto feel himself in himself, and not by reflection in others. He likes to\r\nbe not only his own Alpha and Omega, but to be distinctly all the\r\nintermediate gradations, and then to slope off on his own spine either\r\nway, into the endless impalpable ether. What a glory it was then to\r\nPierre, when first in his two gentlemanly hands he jingled the wages of\r\nlabor! Talk of drums and the fife; the echo of coin of one's own earning\r\nis more inspiring than all the trumpets of Sparta. How disdainfully now\r\nhe eyed the sumptuousness of his hereditary halls--the hangings, and the\r\npictures, and the bragging historic armorials and the banners of the\r\nGlendinning renown; confident, that if need should come, he would not be\r\nforced to turn resurrectionist, and dig up his grandfather's\r\nIndian-chief grave for the ancestral sword and shield, ignominiously to\r\npawn them for a living! He could live on himself. Oh, twice-blessed now,\r\nin the feeling of practical capacity, was Pierre.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 7"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJTDSB3ER53PCEAPSR7B2","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AMXVF4EKSRPT27V450WTJ","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AMXVFYPXSHSXYE35MYMMP","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:53.109Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:28.634Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}