{"id":"01KG8AMZ4J1J3S5Z0ZAS6HM8BV","cid":"bafkreieolagz34cceh2o5yqdjv7quvdmg3qsnin2lq6cmbrkw7an3g7cjm","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":12380,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:52.924Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 4","source_file":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","start_line":12341,"text":"on whom had now descended the maintenance of his mother and sisters.\r\nBut, though the son of a farmer, Charles was peculiarly averse to hard\r\nlabor. It was not impossible that by resolute hard labor he might\r\neventually have succeeded in placing his family in a far more\r\ncomfortable situation than he had ever remembered them. But it was not\r\nso fated; the benevolent State had in its great wisdom decreed\r\notherwise.\r\n\r\nIn the village of Saddle Meadows there was an institution, half\r\ncommon-school and half academy, but mainly supported by a general\r\nordinance and financial provision of the government Here, not only were\r\nthe rudiments of an English education taught, but likewise some touch of\r\nbelles lettres, and composition, and that great American bulwark and\r\nbore--elocution. On the high-raised, stage platform of the Saddle\r\nMeadows Academy, the sons of the most indigent day-laborers were wont to\r\ndrawl out the fiery revolutionary rhetoric of Patrick Henry, or\r\ngesticulate impetuously through the soft cadences of Drake's \"Culprit\r\nFay.\" What wonder, then, that of Saturdays, when there was no elocution\r\nand poesy, these boys should grow melancholy and disdainful over the\r\nheavy, plodding handles of dung-forks and hoes?\r\n\r\nAt the age of fifteen, the ambition of Charles Millthorpe was to be\r\neither an orator, or a poet; at any rate, a great genius of one sort or\r\nother. He recalled the ancestral Knight, and indignantly spurned the\r\nplow. Detecting in him the first germ of this inclination, old\r\nMillthorpe had very seriously reasoned with his son; warning him against\r\nthe evils of his vagrant ambition. Ambition of that sort was either for\r\nundoubted genius, rich boys, or poor boys, standing entirely alone in\r\nthe world, with no one relying upon them. Charles had better consider\r\nthe case; his father was old and infirm; he could not last very long; he\r\nhad nothing to leave behind him but his plow and his hoe; his mother was\r\nsickly; his sisters pale and delicate; and finally, life was a fact, and\r\nthe winters in that part of the country exceedingly bitter and long.\r\nSeven months out of the twelve the pastures bore nothing, and all cattle\r\nmust be fed in the barns. But Charles was a boy; advice often seems the\r\nmost wantonly wasted of all human breath; man will not take wisdom on\r\ntrust; may be, it is well; for such wisdom is worthless; we must find\r\nthe true gem for ourselves; and so we go groping and groping for many\r\nand many a day.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 4"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AKV9RNYXY8GJX63FKTRJF","peer_type":"subsection","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AMZ4D2HR0J1N0J2FHVYZP","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AMZ4BKFG9KV48TGPCN8MM","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:54.418Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:30.306Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}