- end_line
- 10101
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:52.921Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 10064
- text
- necessary not to contradict the thing--so far at least as the mere
imputation goes,--to some one previously entertaining high conventional
regard for us, and from whom we would now solicit some genuine helping
offices; then, all explanation or palation should be scorned;
promptness, boldness, utter gladiatorianism, and a defiant non-humility
should mark every syllable we breathe, and every line we trace.
The preparative letter of Pierre to Glen, plunged at once into the very
heart of the matter, and was perhaps the briefest letter he had ever
written him. Though by no means are such characteristics invariable
exponents of the predominant mood or general disposition of a man (since
so accidental a thing as a numb finger, or a bad quill, or poor ink, or
squalid paper, or a rickety desk may produce all sorts of
modifications), yet in the present instance, the handwriting of Pierre
happened plainly to attest and corroborate the spirit of his
communication. The sheet was large; but the words were placarded upon it
in heavy though rapid lines, only six or eight to the page. And as the
footman of a haughty visitor--some Count or Duke--announces the chariot
of his lord by a thunderous knock on the portal; so to Glen did Pierre,
in the broad, sweeping, and prodigious superscription of his letter,
forewarn him what manner of man was on the road.
In the moment of strong feeling a wonderful condensativeness points the
tongue and pen; so that ideas, then enunciated sharp and quick as
minute-guns, in some other hour of unruffledness or unstimulatedness,
require considerable time and trouble to verbally recall.
Not here and now can we set down the precise contents of Pierre's
letter, without a tautology illy doing justice to the ideas themselves.
And though indeed the dread of tautology be the continual torment of
some earnest minds, and, as such, is surely a weakness in them; and
though no wise man will wonder at conscientious Virgil all eager at
death to burn his Æniad for a monstrous heap of inefficient superfluity;
yet not to dread tautology at times only belongs to those enviable
dunces, whom the partial God hath blessed, over all the earth, with the
inexhaustible self-riches of vanity, and folly, and a blind
self-complacency.
- title
- Chunk 2