{"id":"01KG8AN2ADDSD5AARSRQ0FW46H","cid":"bafkreiahm4kpzxcktuh4kg4rzgjbeihagiq6njh333ht6qw3n3zwlisxve","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":9755,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:52.921Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 3","source_file":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","start_line":9696,"text":"political legend--grind its daily coffee in any mill save of European\r\nmanufacture, and was satirically said to have thought of importing\r\nEuropean air for domestic consumption. The mutually curtailed,\r\nlessening, long-postponed, and at last altogether ceasing letters of\r\nPierre and Glen were the melancholy attestations of a fact, which\r\nperhaps neither of them took very severely to heart, as certainly,\r\nconcerning it, neither took the other to task.\r\n\r\nIn the earlier periods of that strange transition from the generous\r\nimpulsiveness of youth to the provident circumspectness of age, there\r\ngenerally intervenes a brief pause of unpleasant reconsidering; when\r\nfinding itself all wide of its former spontaneous self, the soul\r\nhesitates to commit itself wholly to selfishness; more than repents its\r\nwanderings;--yet all this is but transient; and again hurried on by the\r\nswift current of life, the prompt-hearted boy scarce longer is to be\r\nrecognized in matured man,--very slow to feel, deliberate even in love,\r\nand statistical even in piety. During the sway of this peculiar period,\r\nthe boy shall still make some strenuous efforts to retrieve his\r\ndeparting spontaneities; but so alloyed are all such endeavors with the\r\nincipiencies of selfishness, that they were best not made at all; since\r\ntoo often they seem but empty and self-deceptive sallies, or still\r\nworse, the merest hypocritical assumptions.\r\n\r\nUpon the return of Glen from abroad, the commonest courtesy, not to say\r\nthe blood-relation between them, prompted Pierre to welcome him home,\r\nwith a letter, which though not over-long, and little enthusiastic,\r\nstill breathed a spirit of cousinly consideration and kindness,\r\npervadingly touched by the then naturally frank and all-attractive\r\nspirit of Pierre. To this, the less earnest and now Europeanized Glen\r\nhad replied in a letter all sudden suavity; and in a strain of artistic\r\nartlessness, mourned the apparent decline of their friendship; yet\r\nfondly trusted that now, notwithstanding their long separation, it\r\nwould revive with added sincerity. Yet upon accidentally fixing his\r\nglance upon the opening salutation of this delicate missive, Pierre\r\nthought he perceived certain, not wholly disguisable chirographic\r\ntokens, that the \"My very dear Pierre,\" with which the letter seemed to\r\nhave been begun, had originally been written \"Dear Pierre;\" but that\r\nwhen all was concluded, and Glen's signature put to it, then the ardent\r\nwords \"My very\" had been prefixed to the reconsidered \"Dear Pierre;\" a\r\ncasual supposition, which possibly, however unfounded, materially\r\nretarded any answering warmth in Pierre, lest his generous flame should\r\nonly embrace a flaunted feather. Nor was this idea altogether\r\nunreinforced, when on the reception of a second, and now half-business\r\nletter (of which mixed sort nearly all the subsequent ones were), from\r\nGlen, he found that the \"My very dear Pierre\" had already retreated into\r\n\"My dear Pierre;\" and on a third occasion, into \"Dear Pierre;\" and on a\r\nfourth, had made a forced and very spirited advanced march up to \"My\r\ndearest Pierre.\" All of which fluctuations augured ill for the\r\ndeterminateness of that love, which, however immensely devoted to one\r\ncause, could yet hoist and sail under the flags of all nations. Nor\r\ncould he but now applaud a still subsequent letter from Glen, which\r\nabruptly, and almost with apparent indecorousness, under the\r\ncircumstances, commenced the strain of friendship without any overture\r\nof salutation whatever; as if at last, owing to its infinite\r\ndelicateness, entirely hopeless of precisely defining the nature of\r\ntheir mystical love, Glen chose rather to leave that precise definition\r\nto the sympathetical heart and imagination of Pierre; while he himself\r\nwould go on to celebrate the general relation, by many a sugared\r\nsentence of miscellaneous devotion. It was a little curious and rather\r\nsardonically diverting, to compare these masterly, yet not wholly\r","title":"Chunk 3"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AKTMST8DGQPXYV857P8DN","peer_type":"subsection","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AN1SFE0K38JQ52999N8D9","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AN29ZT910PJWM7RAK16XB","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:57.677Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:25.041Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}