{"id":"01KG8AP92YC4A211P5A301JWWB","cid":"bafkreihxxoaanqqr5xijy7y5y76x6qulx47mggsks7w2gysibpvqurg5my","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":16488,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:49:30.771Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 3","source_file":"01KG89J198KE6FY8WPVJQQRCZ6","start_line":16433,"text":"guided the way of this fire-ship on the sea. Wrapped, for that\r\ninterval, in darkness myself, I but the better saw the redness, the\r\nmadness, the ghastliness of others. The continual sight of the fiend\r\nshapes before me, capering half in smoke and half in fire, these at\r\nlast begat kindred visions in my soul, so soon as I began to yield to\r\nthat unaccountable drowsiness which ever would come over me at a\r\nmidnight helm.\r\n\r\nBut that night, in particular, a strange (and ever since inexplicable)\r\nthing occurred to me. Starting from a brief standing sleep, I was\r\nhorribly conscious of something fatally wrong. The jaw-bone tiller\r\nsmote my side, which leaned against it; in my ears was the low hum of\r\nsails, just beginning to shake in the wind; I thought my eyes were\r\nopen; I was half conscious of putting my fingers to the lids and\r\nmechanically stretching them still further apart. But, spite of all\r\nthis, I could see no compass before me to steer by; though it seemed\r\nbut a minute since I had been watching the card, by the steady binnacle\r\nlamp illuminating it. Nothing seemed before me but a jet gloom, now and\r\nthen made ghastly by flashes of redness. Uppermost was the impression,\r\nthat whatever swift, rushing thing I stood on was not so much bound to\r\nany haven ahead as rushing from all havens astern. A stark, bewildered\r\nfeeling, as of death, came over me. Convulsively my hands grasped the\r\ntiller, but with the crazy conceit that the tiller was, somehow, in\r\nsome enchanted way, inverted. My God! what is the matter with me?\r\nthought I. Lo! in my brief sleep I had turned myself about, and was\r\nfronting the ship’s stern, with my back to her prow and the compass. In\r\nan instant I faced back, just in time to prevent the vessel from flying\r\nup into the wind, and very probably capsizing her. How glad and how\r\ngrateful the relief from this unnatural hallucination of the night, and\r\nthe fatal contingency of being brought by the lee!\r\n\r\nLook not too long in the face of the fire, O man! Never dream with thy\r\nhand on the helm! Turn not thy back to the compass; accept the first\r\nhint of the hitching tiller; believe not the artificial fire, when its\r\nredness makes all things look ghastly. To-morrow, in the natural sun,\r\nthe skies will be bright; those who glared like devils in the forking\r\nflames, the morn will show in far other, at least gentler, relief; the\r\nglorious, golden, glad sun, the only true lamp—all others but liars!\r\n\r\nNevertheless the sun hides not Virginia’s Dismal Swamp, nor Rome’s\r\naccursed Campagna, nor wide Sahara, nor all the millions of miles of\r\ndeserts and of griefs beneath the moon. The sun hides not the ocean,\r\nwhich is the dark side of this earth, and which is two thirds of this\r\nearth. So, therefore, that mortal man who hath more of joy than sorrow\r\nin him, that mortal man cannot be true—not true, or undeveloped. With\r\nbooks the same. The truest of all men was the Man of Sorrows, and the\r\ntruest of all books is Solomon’s, and Ecclesiastes is the fine hammered\r\nsteel of woe. “All is vanity.” ALL. This wilful world hath not got hold\r\nof unchristian Solomon’s wisdom yet. But he who dodges hospitals and\r\njails, and walks fast crossing graveyards, and would rather talk of\r\noperas than hell; calls Cowper, Young, Pascal, Rousseau, poor devils\r\nall of sick men; and throughout a care-free lifetime swears by Rabelais\r\nas passing wise, and therefore jolly;—not that man is fitted to sit\r\ndown on tomb-stones, and break the green damp mould with unfathomably\r\nwondrous Solomon.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 3"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AMA8ZBTY949CN1GV7YMZ7","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J198KE6FY8WPVJQQRCZ6","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AP93CFSZYTRYHFDNYHYBZ","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AP934AXV69NB8193QSME5","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:49:37.374Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:53.967Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}