{"id":"01KG8AN0BK7FWXTHB3W1TDKZBW","cid":"bafkreidptu6ycxq5ebfwnfm6rmlwpp7lq35fcv2ltw65asf2pygsqzycyu","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":7832,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:52.921Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 4","source_file":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","start_line":7769,"text":"eternally entangle him in a fictitious alliance, which, though in\r\nreality but a web of air, yet in effect would prove a wall of iron; for\r\nthe same powerful motive which induced the thought of forming such an\r\nalliance, would always thereafter forbid that tacit exposure of its\r\nfictitiousness, which would be consequent upon its public\r\ndiscontinuance, and the real nuptials of Pierre with any other being\r\nduring the lifetime of Isabel.\r\n\r\nBut according to what view you take of it, it is either the gracious or\r\nthe malicious gift of the great gods to man, that on the threshold of\r\nany wholly new and momentous devoted enterprise, the thousand ulterior\r\nintricacies and emperilings to which it must conduct; these, at the\r\noutset, are mostly withheld from sight; and so, through her\r\never-primeval wilderness Fortune's Knight rides on, alike ignorant of\r\nthe palaces or the pitfalls in its heart. Surprising, and past all\r\nordinary belief, are those strange oversights and inconsistencies, into\r\nwhich the enthusiastic meditation upon unique or extreme resolves will\r\nsometimes beget in young and over-ardent souls. That all-comprehending\r\noneness, that calm representativeness, by which a steady philosophic\r\nmind reaches forth and draws to itself, in their collective entirety,\r\nthe objects of its contemplations; that pertains not to the young\r\nenthusiast. By his eagerness, all objects are deceptively foreshortened;\r\nby his intensity each object is viewed as detached; so that essentially\r\nand relatively every thing is misseen by him. Already have we exposed\r\nthat passing preposterousness in Pierre, which by reason of the\r\nabove-named cause which we have endeavored to portray, induced him to\r\ncherish for a time four unitedly impossible designs. And now we behold\r\nthis hapless youth all eager to involve himself in such an inextricable\r\ntwist of Fate, that the three dextrous maids themselves could hardly\r\ndisentangle him, if once he tie the complicating knots about him and\r\nIsabel.\r\n\r\nAh, thou rash boy! are there no couriers in the air to warn thee away\r\nfrom these emperilings, and point thee to those Cretan labyrinths, to\r\nwhich thy life's cord is leading thee? Where now are the high\r\nbeneficences? Whither fled the sweet angels that are alledged guardians\r\nto man?\r\n\r\nNot that the impulsive Pierre wholly overlooked all that was menacing to\r\nhim in his future, if now he acted out his most rare resolve; but\r\neagerly foreshortened by him, they assumed not their full magnitude of\r\nmenacing; nor, indeed,--so riveted now his purpose--were they pushed up\r\nto his face, would he for that renounce his self-renunciation; while\r\nconcerning all things more immediately contingent upon his central\r\nresolution; these were, doubtless, in a measure, foreseen and understood\r\nby him. Perfectly, at least, he seemed to foresee and understand, that\r\nthe present hope of Lucy Tartan must be banished from his being; that\r\nthis would carry a terrible pang to her, which in the natural recoil\r\nwould but redouble his own; that to the world all his heroicness,\r\nstanding equally unexplained and unsuspected, therefore the world would\r\ndenounce him as infamously false to his betrothed; reckless of the most\r\nbinding human vows; a secret wooer and wedder of an unknown and\r\nenigmatic girl; a spurner of all a loving mother's wisest counselings; a\r\nbringer down of lasting reproach upon an honorable name; a besotted\r\nself-exile from a most prosperous house and bounteous fortune; and\r\nlastly, that now his whole life would, in the eyes of the wide humanity,\r\nbe covered with an all-pervading haze of incurable sinisterness,\r\npossibly not to be removed even in the concluding hour of death.\r\n\r\nSuch, oh thou son of man! are the perils and the miseries thou callest\r\ndown on thee, when, even in a virtuous cause, thou steppest aside from\r\nthose arbitrary lines of conduct, by which the common world, however\r\nbase and dastardly, surrounds thee for thy worldly good.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 4"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AKSZDB4GJMSXZ85ZAME9A","peer_type":"subsection","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AMZPKE3DKKFXDATHCPXZK","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AN0BKZ1D310S1RGW63NKN","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:55.667Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:22.332Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}