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- 15117
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:52.924Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 15055
- text
- seemed intolerable to him, since he so plainly saw, that the brightest
success could not be the sole offspring of Merit; but of Merit for the
one thousandth part, and nine hundred and ninety-nine combining and
dove-tailing accidents for the rest. So beforehand he despised those
laurels which in the very nature of things, can never be impartially
bestowed. But while thus all the earth was depopulated of ambition for
him; still circumstances had put him in the attitude of an eager
contender for renown. So beforehand he felt the unrevealable sting of
receiving either plaudits or censures, equally unsought for, and
equally loathed ere given. So, beforehand he felt the pyramidical scorn
of the genuine loftiness for the whole infinite company of infinitesimal
critics. His was the scorn which thinks it not worth the while to be
scornful. Those he most scorned, never knew it. In that lonely little
closet of his, Pierre foretasted all that this world hath either of
praise or dispraise; and thus foretasting both goblets, anticipatingly
hurled them both in its teeth. All panegyric, all denunciation, all
criticism of any sort, would come too late for Pierre.
But man does never give himself up thus, a doorless and shutterless
house for the four loosened winds of heaven to howl through, without
still additional dilapidations. Much oftener than before, Pierre laid
back in his chair with the deadly feeling of faintness. Much oftener
than before, came staggering home from his evening walk, and from sheer
bodily exhaustion economized the breath that answered the anxious
inquiries as to what might be done for him. And as if all the leagued
spiritual inveteracies and malices, combined with his general bodily
exhaustion, were not enough, a special corporeal affliction now
descended like a sky-hawk upon him. His incessant application told upon
his eyes. They became so affected, that some days he wrote with the lids
nearly closed, fearful of opening them wide to the light. Through the
lashes he peered upon the paper, which so seemed fretted with wires.
Sometimes he blindly wrote with his eyes turned away from the
paper;--thus unconsciously symbolizing the hostile necessity and
distaste, the former whereof made of him this most unwilling
states-prisoner of letters.
As every evening, after his day's writing was done, the proofs of the
beginning of his work came home for correction, Isabel would read them
to him. They were replete with errors; but preoccupied by the thronging,
and undiluted, pure imaginings of things, he became impatient of such
minute, gnat-like torments; he randomly corrected the worst, and let
the rest go; jeering with himself at the rich harvest thus furnished to
the entomological critics.
But at last he received a tremendous interior intimation, to hold
off--to be still from his unnatural struggle.
In the earlier progress of his book, he had found some relief in making
his regular evening walk through the greatest thoroughfare of the city;
that so, the utter isolation of his soul, might feel itself the more
intensely from the incessant jogglings of his body against the bodies of
the hurrying thousands. Then he began to be sensible of more fancying
stormy nights, than pleasant ones; for then, the great thoroughfares
were less thronged, and the innumerable shop-awnings flapped and beat
like schooners' broad sails in a gale, and the shutters banged like
lashed bulwarks; and the slates fell hurtling like displaced ship's
blocks from aloft. Stemming such tempests through the deserted streets,
Pierre felt a dark, triumphant joy; that while others had crawled in
fear to their kennels, he alone defied the storm-admiral, whose most
vindictive peltings of hail-stones,--striking his iron-framed fiery
furnace of a body,--melted into soft dew, and so, harmlessly trickled
from off him.
- title
- Chunk 3