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- 5721
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:47:57.722Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 5652
- text
- "Oh well, sir, whoever talks in that strain, whoever has no confidence
in human reason, whoever despises human reason, in vain to reason with
him. Still, respected sir," altering his air, "permit me to hint that,
had not the force of analogy moved you somewhat, you would hardly have
offered to contemn it."
"Talk away," disdainfully; "but pray tell me what has that last analogy
of yours to do with your intelligence office business?"
"Everything to do with it, respected sir. From that analogy we derive
the reply made to such a patron as, shortly after being supplied by us
with an adult servant, proposes to return him upon our hands; not that,
while with the patron, said adult has given any cause of
dissatisfaction, but the patron has just chanced to hear something
unfavorable concerning him from some gentleman who employed said adult,
long before, while a boy. To which too fastidious patron, we, taking
said adult by the hand, and graciously reintroducing him to the patron,
say: 'Far be it from you, madam, or sir, to proceed in your censure
against this adult, in anything of the spirit of an ex-post-facto law.
Madam, or sir, would you visit upon the butterfly the caterpillar? In
the natural advance of all creatures, do they not bury themselves over
and over again in the endless resurrection of better and better? Madam,
or sir, take back this adult; he may have been a caterpillar, but is now
a butterfly."
"Pun away; but even accepting your analogical pun, what does it amount
to? Was the caterpillar one creature, and is the butterfly another? The
butterfly is the caterpillar in a gaudy cloak; stripped of which, there
lies the impostor's long spindle of a body, pretty much worm-shaped as
before."
"You reject the analogy. To the facts then. You deny that a youth of one
character can be transformed into a man of an opposite character. Now
then--yes, I have it. There's the founder of La Trappe, and Ignatius
Loyola; in boyhood, and someway into manhood, both devil-may-care
bloods, and yet, in the end, the wonders of the world for anchoritish
self-command. These two examples, by-the-way, we cite to such patrons as
would hastily return rakish young waiters upon us. 'Madam, or
sir--patience; patience,' we say; 'good madam, or sir, would you
discharge forth your cask of good wine, because, while working, it riles
more or less? Then discharge not forth this young waiter; the good in
him is working.' 'But he is a sad rake.' 'Therein is his promise; the
rake being crude material for the saint.'"
"Ah, you are a talking man--what I call a wordy man. You talk, talk."
"And with submission, sir, what is the greatest judge, bishop or
prophet, but a talking man? He talks, talks. It is the peculiar vocation
of a teacher to talk. What's wisdom itself but table-talk? The best
wisdom in this world, and the last spoken by its teacher, did it not
literally and truly come in the form of table-talk?"
"You, you, you!" rattling down his rifle.
"To shift the subject, since we cannot agree. Pray, what is your
opinion, respected sir, of St. Augustine?"
"St. Augustine? What should I, or you either, know of him? Seems to me,
for one in such a business, to say nothing of such a coat, that though
you don't know a great deal, indeed, yet you know a good deal more than
you ought to know, or than you have a right to know, or than it is safe
or expedient for you to know, or than, in the fair course of life, you
could have honestly come to know. I am of opinion you should be served
like a Jew in the middle ages with his gold; this knowledge of yours,
which you haven't enough knowledge to know how to make a right use of,
it should be taken from you. And so I have been thinking all along."
"You are merry, sir. But you have a little looked into St. Augustine I
suppose."
- title
- Chunk 9