{"id":"01KG8AMZP7VZAGQDS8XMS9F6F3","cid":"bafkreic7qq2mkxgoy5vknwntdvmoh3pgjsbt27qxrsyfhuo6rvsle3bb2m","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":7466,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:52.921Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","start_line":7408,"text":"And as he now walked on in the profound meditations induced by the hour;\r\nand as all that was in him stirred to and fro, intensely agitated by the\r\never-creative fire of enthusiastic earnestness, he became fully alive to\r\nmany palliating considerations, which had they previously occurred to\r\nhim would have peremptorily forbidden his impulsive intrusion upon the\r\nrespectable clergyman.\r\n\r\nBut it is through the malice of this earthly air, that only by being\r\nguilty of Folly does mortal man in many cases arrive at the perception\r\nof Sense. A thought which should forever free us from hasty imprecations\r\nupon our ever-recurring intervals of Folly; since though Folly be our\r\nteacher, Sense is the lesson she teaches; since if Folly wholly depart\r\nfrom us, Further Sense will be her companion in the flight, and we will\r\nbe left standing midway in wisdom. For it is only the miraculous vanity\r\nof man which ever persuades him, that even for the most richly gifted\r\nmind, there ever arrives an earthly period, where it can truly say to\r\nitself, I have come to the Ultimate of Human Speculative Knowledge;\r\nhereafter, at this present point I will abide. Sudden onsets of new\r\ntruth will assail him, and over-turn him as the Tartars did China; for\r\nthere is no China Wall that man can build in his soul, which shall\r\npermanently stay the irruptions of those barbarous hordes which Truth\r\never nourishes in the loins of her frozen, yet teeming North; so that\r\nthe Empire of Human Knowledge can never be lasting in any one dynasty,\r\nsince Truth still gives new Emperors to the earth.\r\n\r\nBut the thoughts we here indite as Pierre's are to be very carefully\r\ndiscriminated from those we indite concerning him. Ignorant at this time\r\nof the ideas concerning the reciprocity and partnership of Folly and\r\nSense, in contributing to the mental and moral growth of the mind;\r\nPierre keenly upbraided his thoughtlessness, and began to stagger in his\r\nsoul; as distrustful of that radical change in his general sentiments,\r\nwhich had thus hurried him into a glaring impropriety and folly; as\r\ndistrustful of himself, the most wretched distrust of all. But this last\r\ndistrust was not of the heart; for heaven itself, so he felt, had\r\nsanctified that with its blessing; but it was the distrust of his\r\nintellect, which in undisciplinedly espousing the manly enthusiast cause\r\nof his heart, seemed to cast a reproach upon that cause itself.\r\n\r\nBut though evermore hath the earnest heart an eventual balm for the most\r\ndeplorable error of the head; yet in the interval small alleviation is\r\nto be had, and the whole man droops into nameless melancholy. Then it\r\nseems as though the most magnanimous and virtuous resolutions were only\r\nintended for fine spiritual emotions, not as mere preludes to their\r\nbodily translation into acts; since in essaying their embodiment, we\r\nhave but proved ourselves miserable bunglers, and thereupon taken\r\nignominious shame to ourselves. Then, too, the never-entirely repulsed\r\nhosts of Commonness, and Conventionalness, and Worldly\r\nPrudent-mindedness return to the charge; press hard on the faltering\r\nsoul; and with inhuman hootings deride all its nobleness as mere\r\neccentricity, which further wisdom and experience shall assuredly cure.\r\nThe man is as seized by arms and legs, and convulsively pulled either\r\nway by his own indecisions and doubts. Blackness advances her banner\r\nover this cruel altercation, and he droops and swoons beneath its folds.\r\n\r\nIt was precisely in this mood of mind that, at about two in the morning,\r\nPierre, with a hanging head, now crossed the private threshold of the\r\nMansion of Saddle Meadows.\r\n\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AKRMTXTMFHPMNQMKPFAMS","peer_type":"subsection","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AMZP7F029057GGE590AGS","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:54.983Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:21.251Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}