- description
- # Introduction (Pierre)
## Overview
This is an "intro" type entity, specifically the introduction to [BOOK VI. ISABEL, AND THE FIRST PART OF THE STORY OF ISABEL.](arke:01KG8AJSNWVFXAWDXM538XD5AV) from the novel *Pierre* by Herman Melville. It consists of lines 4969-4983 extracted from the source file [pierre.txt](arke:01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A).
## Context
The introduction is part of the larger [Melville Complete Works](arke:01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW) collection. The text was extracted from the file [pierre.txt](arke:01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A) by a structure-extraction-lambda function. It is followed by [II.](arke:01KG8AKSYX931R0JQNW86AMVP1), the next section in the chapter.
## Contents
The introduction describes a character approaching a house, contemplating his decision to leave behind a life of luxury for one of poverty and hardship. He is aware that he is leaving the "brilliant chandeliers of the mansion of Saddle Meadows" to "join company with the wretched rush-lights of poverty and woe." However, he is also motivated by a sense of "god-like truth and virtue."
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- 2026-01-30T20:50:12.586Z
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- description_title
- Introduction (Pierre)
- end_line
- 4983
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- 2026-01-30T20:48:07.471Z
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- start_line
- 4969
- text
- hovering upon the house. He knows it not, but his meditative route is
sinuous; as if that moment his thought's stream was likewise
serpentining: laterally obstructed by insinuated misgivings as to the
ultimate utilitarian advisability of the enthusiast resolution that was
his. His steps decrease in quickness as he comes more nigh, and sees one
feeble light struggling in the rustic double-casement. Infallibly he
knows that his own voluntary steps are taking him forever from the
brilliant chandeliers of the mansion of Saddle Meadows, to join company
with the wretched rush-lights of poverty and woe. But his sublime
intuitiveness also paints to him the sun-like glories of god-like truth
and virtue; which though ever obscured by the dense fogs of earth, still
shall shine eventually in unclouded radiance, casting illustrative light
upon the sapphire throne of God.
- title
- Introduction