- description
- # Narrator's initial state and meeting Standard/Hautboy
## Overview
This scene, titled "Narrator's initial state and meeting Standard/Hautboy," is an extracted textual segment from a larger work. It details the narrator's despair over a rejected poem and his subsequent encounter with two characters, Standard and Hautboy, who invite him to a circus. The scene spans lines 6951 to 6985 of its source file.
## Context
This scene is part of the larger section titled "[THE FIDDLER](arke:01KG6GKYHVPHA523Q2YWBT2YDA)" and was extracted from the file "[billy_budd.txt](arke:01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR)". Both the scene and its source file are held within the "[Test Collection](arke:01KG2T49K0H5GDRB0G4YDTPG8H)". It is chronologically followed by "[The circus scene](arke:01KG6GMC0JARHPNTY4PREGP97X)", which continues the narrative of the characters at the circus.
## Contents
The scene opens with the narrator lamenting the failure of his poem and his perceived lack of "immortal fame." In a fit of despair, he leaves his home and encounters his friend Standard on Broadway. Standard, noticing the narrator's distress, introduces him to Hautboy, a new acquaintance described as short, full-figured, with a "rurally ruddy" complexion, "sincere, cheery, and gray" eyes, and appearing around forty years old. Hautboy, characterized by his "sterling content, good-humour, and extraordinary ruddy, sincere expression," invites the narrator and Standard to a circus and then for a stew and punch at Taylor's, an invitation the narrator accepts, finding Hautboy's demeanor soothing.
- description_generated_at
- 2026-01-30T03:55:57.770Z
- description_model
- gemini-2.5-flash-lite
- description_title
- Narrator's initial state and meeting Standard/Hautboy
- end_line
- 6985
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T03:54:57.271Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 6951
- text
- So my poem is damned, and immortal fame is not for me! I am nobody
forever and ever. Intolerable fate!
Snatching my hat, I dashed down the criticism, and rushed out into
Broadway, where enthusiastic throngs were crowding to a circus in a
side-street near by, very recently started, and famous for a capital
clown.
Presently my old friend Standard rather boisterously accosted me.
‘Well met, Helmstone, my boy! Ah! what’s the matter? Haven’t been
committing murder? Ain’t flying justice? You look wild!’
‘You have seen it, then?’ said I, of course referring to the criticism.
‘Oh yes, I was there at the morning performance. Great clown, I assure
you. But here comes Hautboy. Hautboy--Helmstone.’
Without having time or inclination to resent so mortifying a mistake, I
was instantly soothed as I gazed on the face of the new acquaintance so
unceremoniously introduced. His person was short and full, with a
juvenile, animated cast to it. His complexion rurally ruddy; his eye
sincere, cheery, and gray. His hair alone betrayed that he was not an
overgrown boy. From his hair I set him down as forty or more.
‘Come, Standard,’ he gleefully cried to my friend, ‘are you not going to
the circus? The clown is inimitable, they say. Come; Mr. Helmstone,
too--come both; and circus over, we’ll take a nice stew and punch at
Taylor’s.’
The sterling content, good-humour, and extraordinary ruddy, sincere
expression of this most singular new acquaintance acted upon me like
magic. It seemed mere loyalty to human nature to accept an invitation
from so unmistakably kind and honest a heart.
- title
- Narrator's initial state and meeting Standard/Hautboy