{"id":"01KG8AMZVPB576Y8WMEWP0VBEJ","cid":"bafkreifnwmwevq3dj33jvnzav27csh34yggu43bwylwxcyocsorj6bki2i","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":13107,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:52.924Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","start_line":13048,"text":"I.\r\n\r\nSome days passed after the fatal tidings from the Meadows, and at\r\nlength, somewhat mastering his emotions, Pierre again sits down in his\r\nchamber; for grieve how he will, yet work he must. And now day succeeds\r\nday, and week follows week, and Pierre still sits in his chamber. The\r\nlong rows of cooled brick-kilns around him scarce know of the change;\r\nbut from the fair fields of his great-great-great-grandfather's manor,\r\nSummer hath flown like a swallow-guest; the perfidious wight, Autumn,\r\nhath peeped in at the groves of the maple, and under pretense of\r\nclothing them in rich russet and gold, hath stript them at last of the\r\nslightest rag, and then ran away laughing; prophetic icicles depend from\r\nthe arbors round about the old manorial mansion--now locked up and\r\nabandoned; and the little, round, marble table in the viny summer-house\r\nwhere, of July mornings, he had sat chatting and drinking negus with his\r\ngay mother, is now spread with a shivering napkin of frost; sleety\r\nvarnish hath encrusted that once gay mother's grave, preparing it for\r\nits final cerements of wrapping snow upon snow; wild howl the winds in\r\nthe woods: it is Winter. Sweet Summer is done; and Autumn is done; but\r\nthe book, like the bitter winter, is yet to be finished.\r\n\r\nThat season's wheat is long garnered, Pierre; that season's ripe apples\r\nand grapes are in; no crop, no plant, no fruit is out; the whole harvest\r\nis done. Oh, woe to that belated winter-overtaken plant, which the\r\nsummer could not bring to maturity! The drifting winter snows shall\r\nwhelm it. Think, Pierre, doth not thy plant belong to some other and\r\ntropical clime? Though transplanted to northern Maine, the orange-tree\r\nof the Floridas will put forth leaves in that parsimonious summer, and\r\nshow some few tokens of fruitage; yet November will find no golden\r\nglobes thereon; and the passionate old lumber-man, December, shall peel\r\nthe whole tree, wrench it off at the ground, and toss it for a fagot to\r\nsome lime-kiln. Ah, Pierre, Pierre, make haste! make haste! force thy\r\nfruitage, lest the winter force thee.\r\n\r\nWatch yon little toddler, how long it is learning to stand by itself!\r\nFirst it shrieks and implores, and will not try to stand at all, unless\r\nboth father and mother uphold it; then a little more bold, it must, at\r\nleast, feel one parental hand, else again the cry and the tremble; long\r\ntime is it ere by degrees this child comes to stand without any support.\r\nBut, by-and-by, grown up to man's estate, it shall leave the very mother\r\nthat bore it, and the father that begot it, and cross the seas, perhaps,\r\nor settle in far Oregon lands. There now, do you see the soul. In its\r\ngerm on all sides it is closely folded by the world, as the husk folds\r\nthe tenderest fruit; then it is born from the world-husk, but still now\r\noutwardly clings to it;--still clamors for the support of its mother the\r\nworld, and its father the Deity. But it shall yet learn to stand\r\nindependent, though not without many a bitter wail, and many a miserable\r\nfall.\r\n\r\nThat hour of the life of a man when first the help of humanity fails\r\nhim, and he learns that in his obscurity and indigence humanity holds\r\nhim a dog and no man: that hour is a hard one, but not the hardest.\r\nThere is still another hour which follows, when he learns that in his\r\ninfinite comparative minuteness and abjectness, the gods do likewise\r\ndespise him, and own him not of their clan. Divinity and humanity then\r\nare equally willing that he should starve in the street for all that\r\neither will do for him. Now cruel father and mother have both let go his\r\nhand, and the little soul-toddler, now you shall hear his shriek and his\r\nwail, and often his fall.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AKWWKRQPNYD7AN4VM2EQZ","peer_type":"section","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AMZVPQDJ92PQ36QF7PSZD","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:55.158Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:32.027Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}