prompt:
Chapter: CHAPTER VII. A GENTLEMAN WITH GOLD SLEEVE-BUTTONS.

At an interesting point of the narration, and at the moment when, with
much curiosity, indeed, urgency, the narrator was being particularly
questioned upon that point, he was, as it happened, altogether diverted
both from it and his story, by just then catching sight of a gentleman
who had been standing in sight from the beginning, but, until now, as it
seemed, without being observed by him.

"Pardon me," said he, rising, "but yonder is one who I know will
contribute, and largely. Don't take it amiss if I quit you."

"Go: duty before all things," was the conscientious reply.

The stranger was a man of more than winsome aspect. There he stood apart
and in repose, and yet, by his mere look, lured the man in gray from his
story, much as, by its graciousness of bearing, some full-leaved elm,
alone in a meadow, lures the noon sickleman to throw down his sheaves,
and come and apply for the alms of its shade.

But, considering that goodness is no such rare thing among men--the
world familiarly know the noun; a common one in every language--it was
curious that what so signalized the stranger, and made him look like a
kind of foreigner, among the crowd (as to some it make him appear more
or less unreal in this portraiture), was but the expression of so
prevalent a quality. Such goodness seemed his, allied with such fortune,
that, so far as his own personal experience could have gone, scarcely
could he have known ill, physical or moral; and as for knowing or
suspecting the latter in any serious degree (supposing such degree of it
to be), by observation or philosophy; for that, probably, his nature, by
its opposition, imperfectly qualified, or from it wholly exempted. For
the rest, he might have been five and fifty, perhaps sixty, but tall,
rosy, between plump and portly, with a primy, palmy air, and for the
time and place, not to hint of his years, dressed with a strangely
festive finish and elegance. The inner-side of his coat-skirts was of
white satin, which might have looked especially inappropriate, had it
not seemed less a bit of mere tailoring than something of an emblem, as
it were; an involuntary emblem, let us say, that what seemed so good
about him was not all outside; no, the fine covering had a still finer
lining. Upon one hand he wore a white kid glove, but the other hand,
which was ungloved, looked hardly less white. Now, as the Fidele, like
most steamboats, was upon deck a little soot-streaked here and there,
especially about the railings, it was marvel how, under such
circumstances, these hands retained their spotlessness. But, if you
watched them a while, you noticed that they avoided touching anything;
you noticed, in short, that a certain negro body-servant, whose hands
nature had dyed black, perhaps with the same purpose that millers wear
white, this negro servant's hands did most of his master's handling for
him; having to do with dirt on his account, but not to his prejudices.
But if, with the same undefiledness of consequences to himself, a
gentleman could also sin by deputy, how shocking would that be! But it
is not permitted to be; and even if it were, no judicious moralist would
make proclamation of it.

This gentleman, therefore, there is reason to affirm, was one who, like
the Hebrew governor, knew how to keep his hands clean, and who never in
his life happened to be run suddenly against by hurrying house-painter,
or sweep; in a word, one whose very good luck it was to be a very good
man.

Not that he looked as if he were a kind of Wilberforce at all; that
superior merit, probably, was not his; nothing in his manner bespoke him
righteous, but only good, and though to be good is much below being
righteous, and though there is a difference between the two, yet not, it
is to be hoped, so incompatible as that a righteous man can not be a
good man; though, conversely, in the pulpit it has been with much
cogency urged, that a merely good man, that is, one good merely by his
nature, is so far from there by being righteous, that nothing short of a
total change and conversion can make him so; which is something which no
honest mind, well read in the history of righteousness, will care to
deny; nevertheless, since St. Paul himself, agreeing in a sense with the
pulpit distinction, though not altogether in the pulpit deduction, and
also pretty plainly intimating which of the two qualities in question
enjoys his apostolic preference; I say, since St. Paul has so meaningly
said, that, "scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet peradventure
for a good man some would even dare to die;" therefore, when we repeat
of this gentleman, that he was only a good man, whatever else by severe
censors may be objected to him, it is still to be hoped that his
goodness will not at least be considered criminal in him. At all events,
no man, not even a righteous man, would think it quite right to commit
this gentleman to prison for the crime, extraordinary as he might deem
it; more especially, as, until everything could be known, there would be
some chance that the gentleman might after all be quite as innocent of
it as he himself.

It was pleasant to mark the good man's reception of the salute of the
righteous man, that is, the man in gray; his inferior, apparently, not
more in the social scale than in stature. Like the benign elm again, the
good man seemed to wave the canopy of his goodness over that suitor, not
in conceited condescension, but with that even amenity of true majesty,
which can be kind to any one without stooping to it.

To the plea in behalf of the Seminole widows and orphans, the gentleman,
after a question or two duly answered, responded by producing an ample
pocket-book in the good old capacious style, of fine green French
morocco and workmanship, bound with silk of the same color, not to omit
bills crisp with newness, fresh from the bank, no muckworms' grime upon
them. Lucre those bills might be, but as yet having been kept unspotted
from the world, not of the filthy sort. Placing now three of those
virgin bills in the applicant's hands, he hoped that the smallness of
the contribution would be pardoned; to tell the truth, and this at last
accounted for his toilet, he was bound but a short run down the river,
to attend, in a festive grove, the afternoon wedding of his niece: so
did not carry much money with him.

The other was about expressing his thanks when the gentleman in his
pleasant way checked him: the gratitude was on the other side. To him,
he said, charity was in one sense not an effort, but a luxury; against
too great indulgence in which his steward, a humorist, had sometimes
admonished him.

In some general talk which followed, relative to organized modes of
doing good, the gentleman expressed his regrets that so many benevolent
societies as there were, here and there isolated in the land, should not
act in concert by coming together, in the way that already in each
society the individuals composing it had done, which would result, he
thought, in like advantages upon a larger scale. Indeed, such a
confederation might, perhaps, be attended with as happy results as
politically attended that of the states.

Upon his hitherto moderate enough companion, this suggestion had an
effect illustrative in a sort of that notion of Socrates, that the soul
is a harmony; for as the sound of a flute, in any particular key, will,
it is said, audibly affect the corresponding chord of any harp in good
tune, within hearing, just so now did some string in him respond, and
with animation.

Which animation, by the way, might seem more or less out of character in
the man in gray, considering his unsprightly manner when first
introduced, had he not already, in certain after colloquies, given
proof, in some degree, of the fact, that, with certain natures, a
soberly continent air at times, so far from arguing emptiness of stuff,
is good proof it is there, and plenty of it, because unwasted, and may
be used the more effectively, too, when opportunity offers. What now
follows on the part of the man in gray will still further exemplify,
perhaps somewhat strikingly, the truth, or what appears to be such, of
this remark.

"Sir," said he eagerly, "I am before you. A project, not dissimilar to
yours, was by me thrown out at the World's Fair in London."

"World's Fair? You there? Pray how was that?"

"First, let me----"

"Nay, but first tell me what took you to the Fair?"

"I went to exhibit an invalid's easy-chair I had invented."

"Then you have not always been in the charity business?"

"Is it not charity to ease human suffering? I am, and always have been,
as I always will be, I trust, in the charity business, as you call it;
but charity is not like a pin, one to make the head, and the other the
point; charity is a work to which a good workman may be competent in all
its branches. I invented my Protean easy-chair in odd intervals stolen
from meals and sleep."

"You call it the Protean easy-chair; pray describe it."

"My Protean easy-chair is a chair so all over bejointed, behinged, and
bepadded, everyway so elastic, springy, and docile to the airiest touch,
that in some one of its endlessly-changeable accommodations of back,
seat, footboard, and arms, the most restless body, the body most racked,
nay, I had almost added the most tormented conscience must, somehow and
somewhere, find rest. Believing that I owed it to suffering humanity to
make known such a chair to the utmost, I scraped together my little
means and off to the World's Fair with it."

"You did right. But your scheme; how did you come to hit upon that?"

"I was going to tell you. After seeing my invention duly catalogued and
placed, I gave myself up to pondering the scene about me. As I dwelt
upon that shining pageant of arts, and moving concourse of nations, and
reflected that here was the pride of the world glorying in a glass
house, a sense of the fragility of worldly grandeur profoundly impressed
me. And I said to myself, I will see if this occasion of vanity cannot
supply a hint toward a better profit than was designed. Let some
world-wide good to the world-wide cause be now done. In short, inspired
by the scene, on the fourth day I issued at the World's Fair my
prospectus of the World's Charity."

"Quite a thought. But, pray explain it."

"The World's Charity is to be a society whose members shall comprise
deputies from every charity and mission extant; the one object of the
society to be the methodization of the world's benevolence; to which
end, the present system of voluntary and promiscuous contribution to be
done away, and the Society to be empowered by the various governments to
levy, annually, one grand benevolence tax upon all mankind; as in
Augustus Caesar's time, the whole world to come up to be taxed; a tax
which, for the scheme of it, should be something like the income-tax in
England, a tax, also, as before hinted, to be a consolidation-tax of all
possible benevolence taxes; as in America here, the state-tax, and the
county-tax, and the town-tax, and the poll-tax, are by the assessors
rolled into one. This tax, according to my tables, calculated with care,
would result in the yearly raising of a fund little short of eight
hundred millions; this fund to be annually applied to such objects, and
in such modes, as the various charities and missions, in general
congress represented, might decree; whereby, in fourteen years, as I
estimate, there would have been devoted to good works the sum of eleven
thousand two hundred millions; which would warrant the dissolution of
the society, as that fund judiciously expended, not a pauper or heathen
could remain the round world over."

"Eleven thousand two hundred millions! And all by passing round a _hat_,
as it were."

"Yes, I am no Fourier, the projector of an impossible scheme, but a
philanthropist and a financier setting forth a philanthropy and a
finance which are practicable."

"Practicable?"

"Yes. Eleven thousand two hundred millions; it will frighten none but a
retail philanthropist. What is it but eight hundred millions for each of
fourteen years? Now eight hundred millions--what is that, to average it,
but one little dollar a head for the population of the planet? And who
will refuse, what Turk or Dyak even, his own little dollar for sweet
charity's sake? Eight hundred millions! More than that sum is yearly
expended by mankind, not only in vanities, but miseries. Consider that
bloody spendthrift, War. And are mankind so stupid, so wicked, that,
upon the demonstration of these things they will not, amending their
ways, devote their superfluities to blessing the world instead of
cursing it? Eight hundred millions! They have not to make it, it is
theirs already; they have but to direct it from ill to good. And to
this, scarce a self-denial is demanded. Actually, they would not in the
mass be one farthing the poorer for it; as certainly would they be all
the better and happier. Don't you see? But admit, as you must, that
mankind is not mad, and my project is practicable. For, what creature
but a madman would not rather do good than ill, when it is plain that,
good or ill, it must return upon himself?"

"Your sort of reasoning," said the good gentleman, adjusting his gold
sleeve-buttons, "seems all reasonable enough, but with mankind it wont
do."

"Then mankind are not reasoning beings, if reason wont do with them."

"That is not to the purpose. By-the-way, from the manner in which you
alluded to the world's census, it would appear that, according to your
world-wide scheme, the pauper not less than the nabob is to contribute
to the relief of pauperism, and the heathen not less than the Christian
to the conversion of heathenism. How is that?"

"Why, that--pardon me--is quibbling. Now, no philanthropist likes to be
opposed with quibbling."

"Well, I won't quibble any more. But, after all, if I understand your
project, there is little specially new in it, further than the
magnifying of means now in operation."

"Magnifying and energizing. For one thing, missions I would thoroughly
reform. Missions I would quicken with the Wall street spirit."

"The Wall street spirit?"

"Yes; for if, confessedly, certain spiritual ends are to be gained but
through the auxiliary agency of worldly means, then, to the surer
gaining of such spiritual ends, the example of worldly policy in worldly
projects should not by spiritual projectors be slighted. In brief, the
conversion of the heathen, so far, at least, as depending on human
effort, would, by the world's charity, be let out on contract. So much
by bid for converting India, so much for Borneo, so much for Africa.
Competition allowed, stimulus would be given. There would be no
lethargy of monopoly. We should have no mission-house or tract-house of
which slanderers could, with any plausibility, say that it had
degenerated in its clerkships into a sort of custom-house. But the main
point is the Archimedean money-power that would be brought to bear."

"You mean the eight hundred million power?"

"Yes. You see, this doing good to the world by driblets amounts to just
nothing. I am for doing good to the world with a will. I am for doing
good to the world once for all and having done with it. Do but think, my
dear sir, of the eddies and maelstroms of pagans in China. People here
have no conception of it. Of a frosty morning in Hong Kong, pauper
pagans are found dead in the streets like so many nipped peas in a bin
of peas. To be an immortal being in China is no more distinction than to
be a snow-flake in a snow-squall. What are a score or two of
missionaries to such a people? A pinch of snuff to the kraken. I am for
sending ten thousand missionaries in a body and converting the Chinese
_en masse_ within six months of the debarkation. The thing is then done,
and turn to something else."

"I fear you are too enthusiastic."

"A philanthropist is necessarily an enthusiast; for without enthusiasm
what was ever achieved but commonplace? But again: consider the poor in
London. To that mob of misery, what is a joint here and a loaf there? I
am for voting to them twenty thousand bullocks and one hundred thousand
barrels of flour to begin with. They are then comforted, and no more
hunger for one while among the poor of London. And so all round."

"Sharing the character of your general project, these things, I take it,
are rather examples of wonders that were to be wished, than wonders that
will happen."

"And is the age of wonders passed? Is the world too old? Is it barren?
Think of Sarah."

"Then I am Abraham reviling the angel (with a smile). But still, as to
your design at large, there seems a certain audacity."

"But if to the audacity of the design there be brought a commensurate
circumspectness of execution, how then?"

"Why, do you really believe that your world's charity will ever go into
operation?"

"I have confidence that it will."

"But may you not be over-confident?"

"For a Christian to talk so!"

"But think of the obstacles!"

"Obstacles? I have confidence to remove obstacles, though mountains.
Yes, confidence in the world's charity to that degree, that, as no
better person offers to supply the place, I have nominated myself
provisional treasurer, and will be happy to receive subscriptions, for
the present to be devoted to striking off a million more of my
prospectuses."

The talk went on; the man in gray revealed a spirit of benevolence
which, mindful of the millennial promise, had gone abroad over all the
countries of the globe, much as the diligent spirit of the husbandman,
stirred by forethought of the coming seed-time, leads him, in March
reveries at his fireside, over every field of his farm. The master chord
of the man in gray had been touched, and it seemed as if it would never
cease vibrating. A not unsilvery tongue, too, was his, with gestures
that were a Pentecost of added ones, and persuasiveness before which
granite hearts might crumble into gravel.

Strange, therefore, how his auditor, so singularly good-hearted as he
seemed, remained proof to such eloquence; though not, as it turned out,
to such pleadings. For, after listening a while longer with pleasant
incredulity, presently, as the boat touched his place of destination,
the gentleman, with a look half humor, half pity, put another bank-note
into his hands; charitable to the last, if only to the dreams of
enthusiasm.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: While Grey-and-white is telling the clergyman about the history of his charity, he notices a fancy man dressed to the nines. He's got a manservant who does nearly everything for him, so he doesn't ever have to get his hands dirty. Grey-and-white pegs this guy as a generous donor and excuses himself to go get it. Fancy-pants is a good dude. At least that's his major vibe, though the narrator makes a distinction between being good and being righteous. Basically, people would be willing to die for a good man, but not so much for a righteous one. That's too bad for Grey-and-white, who's described as pretty darn righteous by the narrator. Grey-and-white has surmised correctly, at any rate, and the good guy drops some hefty cash money on him. In an offhand comment, he mentions to Grey-and-white that it would just be easier if all the charities teamed up to form one big charity. Grey-and-white's response: Shut up. No way. That's totally what I said at the world's fair. They laughed at me, though. Good guy: Whoa, really? Why were you there? Grey-and-white: I invented a special wheelchair. Good guy: That's awesome. Grey-and-white: Yeah. I'm really awesome. But when I said we should have a one-world-order kind of tax to raise enough money and pay for all the things--including converting everybody to Christianity--nobody was on my side. At this point the good guy gives Grey-and-white his best "What even?" stare and starts with the whole "Let's be logical" thing. He still admires Grey-and-white's enthusiasm, though, and hands him another crisp bill.


prompt:
Chapter: CHAPTER VIII. A CHARITABLE LADY.

If a drunkard in a sober fit is the dullest of mortals, an enthusiast in
a reason-fit is not the most lively. And this, without prejudice to his
greatly improved understanding; for, if his elation was the height of
his madness, his despondency is but the extreme of his sanity. Something
thus now, to all appearance, with the man in gray. Society his stimulus,
loneliness was his lethargy. Loneliness, like the sea breeze, blowing
off from a thousand leagues of blankness, he did not find, as veteran
solitaires do, if anything, too bracing. In short, left to himself, with
none to charm forth his latent lymphatic, he insensibly resumes his
original air, a quiescent one, blended of sad humility and demureness.

Ere long he goes laggingly into the ladies' saloon, as in spiritless
quest of somebody; but, after some disappointed glances about him, seats
himself upon a sofa with an air of melancholy exhaustion and depression.

At the sofa's further end sits a plump and pleasant person, whose aspect
seems to hint that, if she have any weak point, it must be anything
rather than her excellent heart. From her twilight dress, neither dawn
nor dark, apparently she is a widow just breaking the chrysalis of her
mourning. A small gilt testament is in her hand, which she has just been
reading. Half-relinquished, she holds the book in reverie, her finger
inserted at the xiii. of 1st Corinthians, to which chapter possibly her
attention might have recently been turned, by witnessing the scene of
the monitory mute and his slate.

The sacred page no longer meets her eye; but, as at evening, when for a
time the western hills shine on though the sun be set, her thoughtful
face retains its tenderness though the teacher is forgotten.

Meantime, the expression of the stranger is such as ere long to attract
her glance. But no responsive one. Presently, in her somewhat
inquisitive survey, her volume drops. It is restored. No encroaching
politeness in the act, but kindness, unadorned. The eyes of the lady
sparkle. Evidently, she is not now unprepossessed. Soon, bending over,
in a low, sad tone, full of deference, the stranger breathes, "Madam,
pardon my freedom, but there is something in that face which strangely
draws me. May I ask, are you a sister of the Church?"

"Why--really--you--"

In concern for her embarrassment, he hastens to relieve it, but, without
seeming so to do. "It is very solitary for a brother here," eying the
showy ladies brocaded in the background, "I find none to mingle souls
with. It may be wrong--I _know_ it is--but I cannot force myself to be
easy with the people of the world. I prefer the company, however
silent, of a brother or sister in good standing. By the way, madam, may
I ask if you have confidence?"

"Really, sir--why, sir--really--I--"

"Could you put confidence in _me_ for instance?"

"Really, sir--as much--I mean, as one may wisely put in a--a--stranger,
an entire stranger, I had almost said," rejoined the lady, hardly yet at
ease in her affability, drawing aside a little in body, while at the
same time her heart might have been drawn as far the other way. A
natural struggle between charity and prudence.

"Entire stranger!" with a sigh. "Ah, who would be a stranger? In vain, I
wander; no one will have confidence in me."

"You interest me," said the good lady, in mild surprise. "Can I any way
befriend you?"

"No one can befriend me, who has not confidence."

"But I--I have--at least to that degree--I mean that----"

"Nay, nay, you have none--none at all. Pardon, I see it. No confidence.
Fool, fond fool that I am to seek it!"

"You are unjust, sir," rejoins the good lady with heightened interest;
"but it may be that something untoward in your experiences has unduly
biased you. Not that I would cast reflections. Believe me, I--yes,
yes--I may say--that--that----"

"That you have confidence? Prove it. Let me have twenty dollars."

"Twenty dollars!"

"There, I told you, madam, you had no confidence."

The lady was, in an extraordinary way, touched. She sat in a sort of
restless torment, knowing not which way to turn. She began twenty
different sentences, and left off at the first syllable of each. At
last, in desperation, she hurried out, "Tell me, sir, for what you want
the twenty dollars?"

"And did I not----" then glancing at her half-mourning, "for the widow
and the fatherless. I am traveling agent of the Widow and Orphan Asylum,
recently founded among the Seminoles."

"And why did you not tell me your object before?" As not a little
relieved. "Poor souls--Indians, too--those cruelly-used Indians. Here,
here; how could I hesitate. I am so sorry it is no more."

"Grieve not for that, madam," rising and folding up the bank-notes.
"This is an inconsiderable sum, I admit, but," taking out his pencil and
book, "though I here but register the amount, there is another register,
where is set down the motive. Good-bye; you have confidence. Yea, you
can say to me as the apostle said to the Corinthians, 'I rejoice that I
have confidence in you in all things.'"

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: In a somber mood, Grey-and-white heads into the ladies' saloon and sits by a pleasant-looking woman--a widow--in clothes that indicate she's just coming out of mourning. She's been reading the Bible. Specifically, this lady's been reading 1 Corinthians 13. This is the uber-famous love is patient, love is kind section that gets used during many a wedding in the U.S. Really quick, though: the edition of the Bible that Melville probably has in mind when writing in the 1800s would have had "charity" in place of "love." In fact, the lines our guy wrote on his slate in chapter one about charity are taken straight out of this section. What a coincidence. Anyway, the woman notices Grey-and-white but doesn't say anything. Grey-and-white notices her and does say a thing: "May I ask, are you a sister of the church?" . Smooth. The lady stammers because it's an odd question. Grey-and-white jumps into a spiel about how he can't really connect with anyone outside the church, and she seemed like she might be, you know, one of his kind. There's more stammering on the lady's part, when Grey-and-white interrupts her again. He goes on and on about whether or not she could believe in him. But you're a stranger. Grey-and-white guilts the lady into saying she has confidence in him. Prove it, Grey-and-white demands. Give me twenty bucks. That amount of money would be close to $365 today. Translation: he's asking a lot. The lady asks Grey-and-white to at least tell her why he needs the money. He brings up the widows and orphans charity, and she readily hands over the money. Grey-and-white quotes a different passage from Corinthians back at the lady. It's about having confidence. Go figure.


prompt:
Chapter: CHAPTER IX. TWO BUSINESS MEN TRANSACT A LITTLE BUSINESS.

----"Pray, sir, have you seen a gentleman with a weed hereabouts, rather
a saddish gentleman? Strange where he can have gone to. I was talking
with him not twenty minutes since."

By a brisk, ruddy-cheeked man in a tasseled traveling-cap, carrying
under his arm a ledger-like volume, the above words were addressed to
the collegian before introduced, suddenly accosted by the rail to which
not long after his retreat, as in a previous chapter recounted, he had
returned, and there remained.

"Have you seen him, sir?"

Rallied from his apparent diffidence by the genial jauntiness of the
stranger, the youth answered with unwonted promptitude: "Yes, a person
with a weed was here not very long ago."

"Saddish?"

"Yes, and a little cracked, too, I should say."

"It was he. Misfortune, I fear, has disturbed his brain. Now quick,
which way did he go?"

"Why just in the direction from which you came, the gangway yonder."

"Did he? Then the man in the gray coat, whom I just met, said right: he
must have gone ashore. How unlucky!"

He stood vexedly twitching at his cap-tassel, which fell over by his
whisker, and continued: "Well, I am very sorry. In fact, I had something
for him here."--Then drawing nearer, "you see, he applied to me for
relief, no, I do him injustice, not that, but he began to intimate, you
understand. Well, being very busy just then, I declined; quite rudely,
too, in a cold, morose, unfeeling way, I fear. At all events, not three
minutes afterwards I felt self-reproach, with a kind of prompting, very
peremptory, to deliver over into that unfortunate man's hands a
ten-dollar bill. You smile. Yes, it may be superstition, but I can't
help it; I have my weak side, thank God. Then again," he rapidly went
on, "we have been so very prosperous lately in our affairs--by we, I
mean the Black Rapids Coal Company--that, really, out of my abundance,
associative and individual, it is but fair that a charitable investment
or two should be made, don't you think so?"

"Sir," said the collegian without the least embarrassment, "do I
understand that you are officially connected with the Black Rapids Coal
Company?"

"Yes, I happen to be president and transfer-agent."

"You are?"

"Yes, but what is it to you? You don't want to invest?"

"Why, do you sell the stock?"

"Some might be bought, perhaps; but why do you ask? you don't want to
invest?"

"But supposing I did," with cool self-collectedness, "could you do up
the thing for me, and here?"

"Bless my soul," gazing at him in amaze, "really, you are quite a
business man. Positively, I feel afraid of you."

"Oh, no need of that.--You could sell me some of that stock, then?"

"I don't know, I don't know. To be sure, there are a few shares under
peculiar circumstances bought in by the Company; but it would hardly be
the thing to convert this boat into the Company's office. I think you
had better defer investing. So," with an indifferent air, "you have seen
the unfortunate man I spoke of?"

"Let the unfortunate man go his ways.--What is that large book you have
with you?"

"My transfer-book. I am subpoenaed with it to court."

"Black Rapids Coal Company," obliquely reading the gilt inscription on
the back; "I have heard much of it. Pray do you happen to have with you
any statement of the condition of your company."

"A statement has lately been printed."

"Pardon me, but I am naturally inquisitive. Have you a copy with you?"

"I tell you again, I do not think that it would be suitable to convert
this boat into the Company's office.--That unfortunate man, did you
relieve him at all?"

"Let the unfortunate man relieve himself.--Hand me the statement."

"Well, you are such a business-man, I can hardly deny you. Here,"
handing a small, printed pamphlet.

The youth turned it over sagely.

"I hate a suspicious man," said the other, observing him; "but I must
say I like to see a cautious one."

"I can gratify you there," languidly returning the pamphlet; "for, as I
said before, I am naturally inquisitive; I am also circumspect. No
appearances can deceive me. Your statement," he added "tells a very fine
story; but pray, was not your stock a little heavy awhile ago? downward
tendency? Sort of low spirits among holders on the subject of that
stock?"

"Yes, there was a depression. But how came it? who devised it? The
'bears,' sir. The depression of our stock was solely owing to the
growling, the hypocritical growling, of the bears."

"How, hypocritical?"

"Why, the most monstrous of all hypocrites are these bears: hypocrites
by inversion; hypocrites in the simulation of things dark instead of
bright; souls that thrive, less upon depression, than the fiction of
depression; professors of the wicked art of manufacturing depressions;
spurious Jeremiahs; sham Heraclituses, who, the lugubrious day done,
return, like sham Lazaruses among the beggars, to make merry over the
gains got by their pretended sore heads--scoundrelly bears!"

"You are warm against these bears?"

"If I am, it is less from the remembrance of their stratagems as to our
stock, than from the persuasion that these same destroyers of
confidence, and gloomy philosophers of the stock-market, though false in
themselves, are yet true types of most destroyers of confidence and
gloomy philosophers, the world over. Fellows who, whether in stocks,
politics, bread-stuffs, morals, metaphysics, religion--be it what it
may--trump up their black panics in the naturally-quiet brightness,
solely with a view to some sort of covert advantage. That corpse of
calamity which the gloomy philosopher parades, is but his
Good-Enough-Morgan."

"I rather like that," knowingly drawled the youth. "I fancy these gloomy
souls as little as the next one. Sitting on my sofa after a champagne
dinner, smoking my plantation cigar, if a gloomy fellow come to me--what
a bore!"

"You tell him it's all stuff, don't you?"

"I tell him it ain't natural. I say to him, you are happy enough, and
you know it; and everybody else is as happy as you, and you know that,
too; and we shall all be happy after we are no more, and you know that,
too; but no, still you must have your sulk."

"And do you know whence this sort of fellow gets his sulk? not from
life; for he's often too much of a recluse, or else too young to have
seen anything of it. No, he gets it from some of those old plays he sees
on the stage, or some of those old books he finds up in garrets. Ten to
one, he has lugged home from auction a musty old Seneca, and sets about
stuffing himself with that stale old hay; and, thereupon, thinks it
looks wise and antique to be a croaker, thinks it's taking a stand-way
above his kind."

"Just so," assented the youth. "I've lived some, and seen a good many
such ravens at second hand. By the way, strange how that man with the
weed, you were inquiring for, seemed to take me for some soft
sentimentalist, only because I kept quiet, and thought, because I had a
copy of Tacitus with me, that I was reading him for his gloom, instead
of his gossip. But I let him talk. And, indeed, by my manner humored
him."

"You shouldn't have done that, now. Unfortunate man, you must have made
quite a fool of him."

"His own fault if I did. But I like prosperous fellows, comfortable
fellows; fellows that talk comfortably and prosperously, like you. Such
fellows are generally honest. And, I say now, I happen to have a
superfluity in my pocket, and I'll just----"

"----Act the part of a brother to that unfortunate man?"

"Let the unfortunate man be his own brother. What are you dragging him
in for all the time? One would think you didn't care to register any
transfers, or dispose of any stock--mind running on something else. I
say I will invest."

"Stay, stay, here come some uproarious fellows--this way, this way."

And with off-handed politeness the man with the book escorted his
companion into a private little haven removed from the brawling swells
without.

Business transacted, the two came forth, and walked the deck.

"Now tell me, sir," said he with the book, "how comes it that a young
gentleman like you, a sedate student at the first appearance, should
dabble in stocks and that sort of thing?"

"There are certain sophomorean errors in the world," drawled the
sophomore, deliberately adjusting his shirt-collar, "not the least of
which is the popular notion touching the nature of the modern scholar,
and the nature of the modern scholastic sedateness."

"So it seems, so it seems. Really, this is quite a new leaf in my
experience."

"Experience, sir," originally observed the sophomore, "is the only
teacher."

"Hence am I your pupil; for it's only when experience speaks, that I can
endure to listen to speculation."

"My speculations, sir," dryly drawing himself up, "have been chiefly
governed by the maxim of Lord Bacon; I speculate in those philosophies
which come home to my business and bosom--pray, do you know of any other
good stocks?"

"You wouldn't like to be concerned in the New Jerusalem, would you?"

"New Jerusalem?"

"Yes, the new and thriving city, so called, in northern Minnesota. It
was originally founded by certain fugitive Mormons. Hence the name. It
stands on the Mississippi. Here, here is the map," producing a roll.
"There--there, you see are the public buildings--here the landing--there
the park--yonder the botanic gardens--and this, this little dot here, is
a perpetual fountain, you understand. You observe there are twenty
asterisks. Those are for the lyceums. They have lignum-vitae rostrums."

"And are all these buildings now standing?"

"All standing--bona fide."

"These marginal squares here, are they the water-lots?"

"Water-lots in the city of New Jerusalem? All terra firma--you don't
seem to care about investing, though?"

"Hardly think I should read my title clear, as the law students say,"
yawned the collegian.

"Prudent--you are prudent. Don't know that you are wholly out, either.
At any rate, I would rather have one of your shares of coal stock than
two of this other. Still, considering that the first settlement was by
two fugitives, who had swum over naked from the opposite shore--it's a
surprising place. It is, _bona fide_.--But dear me, I must go. Oh, if by
possibility you should come across that unfortunate man----"

"--In that case," with drawling impatience, "I will send for the
steward, and have him and his misfortunes consigned overboard."

"Ha ha!--now were some gloomy philosopher here, some theological bear,
forever taking occasion to growl down the stock of human nature (with
ulterior views, d'ye see, to a fat benefice in the gift of the
worshipers of Ariamius), he would pronounce that the sign of a hardening
heart and a softening brain. Yes, that would be his sinister
construction. But it's nothing more than the oddity of a genial
humor--genial but dry. Confess it. Good-bye."

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: We're back outside on the railing with our college kid. A man wearing a travelling cap with a perky little tassel on top asks the kid if he's seen the man with a weed on his hat. Oh, man, has college kid seen him? Yeah. And he's none too pleased about it, either. Tassel figures Weeds must have disembarked. College kid figures it's good riddance. Tassel wishes he could have caught Weeds before he left. His company--the Black Rapids Coal Company, to be exact--made a lot of money recently, and he wants to pay it forward. Hold the phone. College kid's interest is piqued. If Tassel is selling, he's buying. There's a lot of back and forth here that basically amounts to this: Buying; really? Yes; gimmie. The two also talk about gloomy philosophers ruining everything with their downer attitudes. Tassel blames them for the fact that popular opinion has lost confidence in the stock market. Eventually, Tassel and the college kid go into a side room, then come back ostensibly having struck a deal. All we can say is, secrets don't make friends. When they come back, Tassel tries to get the college kid to invest in a new development called "New Jerusalem." College kid is not interested. Tassel brings up Weeds again. College kid says shut it about that guy. Tassel ends with a comment about how as the college kid hardens his heart against others like Weeds, his brain softens.


prompt:
Chapter: CHAPTER X. IN THE CABIN.

Stools, settees, sofas, divans, ottomans; occupying them are clusters of
men, old and young, wise and simple; in their hands are cards spotted
with diamonds, spades, clubs, hearts; the favorite games are whist,
cribbage, and brag. Lounging in arm-chairs or sauntering among the
marble-topped tables, amused with the scene, are the comparatively few,
who, instead of having hands in the games, for the most part keep their
hands in their pockets. These may be the philosophes. But here and
there, with a curious expression, one is reading a small sort of
handbill of anonymous poetry, rather wordily entitled:--

  "ODE
  ON THE INTIMATIONS
  OF
  DISTRUST IN MAN,
  UNWILLINGLY INFERRED FROM REPEATED REPULSES,
  IN DISINTERESTED ENDEAVORS
  TO PROCURE HIS
  CONFIDENCE."

On the floor are many copies, looking as if fluttered down from a
balloon. The way they came there was this: A somewhat elderly person, in
the quaker dress, had quietly passed through the cabin, and, much in
the manner of those railway book-peddlers who precede their proffers of
sale by a distribution of puffs, direct or indirect, of the volumes to
follow, had, without speaking, handed about the odes, which, for the
most part, after a cursory glance, had been disrespectfully tossed
aside, as no doubt, the moonstruck production of some wandering
rhapsodist.

In due time, book under arm, in trips the ruddy man with the
traveling-cap, who, lightly moving to and fro, looks animatedly about
him, with a yearning sort of gratulatory affinity and longing,
expressive of the very soul of sociality; as much as to say, "Oh, boys,
would that I were personally acquainted with each mother's son of you,
since what a sweet world, to make sweet acquaintance in, is ours, my
brothers; yea, and what dear, happy dogs are we all!"

And just as if he had really warbled it forth, he makes fraternally up
to one lounging stranger or another, exchanging with him some pleasant
remark.

"Pray, what have you there?" he asked of one newly accosted, a little,
dried-up man, who looked as if he never dined.

"A little ode, rather queer, too," was the reply, "of the same sort you
see strewn on the floor here."

"I did not observe them. Let me see;" picking one up and looking it
over. "Well now, this is pretty; plaintive, especially the opening:--

    'Alas for man, he hath small sense
    Of genial trust and confidence.'

--If it be so, alas for him, indeed. Runs off very smoothly, sir.
Beautiful pathos. But do you think the sentiment just?"

"As to that," said the little dried-up man, "I think it a kind of queer
thing altogether, and yet I am almost ashamed to add, it really has set
me to thinking; yes and to feeling. Just now, somehow, I feel as it were
trustful and genial. I don't know that ever I felt so much so before. I
am naturally numb in my sensibilities; but this ode, in its way, works
on my numbness not unlike a sermon, which, by lamenting over my lying
dead in trespasses and sins, thereby stirs me up to be all alive in
well-doing."

"Glad to hear it, and hope you will do well, as the doctors say. But who
snowed the odes about here?"

"I cannot say; I have not been here long."

"Wasn't an angel, was it? Come, you say you feel genial, let us do as
the rest, and have cards."

"Thank you, I never play cards."

"A bottle of wine?"

"Thank you, I never drink wine."

"Cigars?"

"Thank you, I never smoke cigars."

"Tell stories?"

"To speak truly, I hardly think I know one worth telling."

"Seems to me, then, this geniality you say you feel waked in you, is as
water-power in a land without mills. Come, you had better take a genial
hand at the cards. To begin, we will play for as small a sum as you
please; just enough to make it interesting."

"Indeed, you must excuse me. Somehow I distrust cards."

"What, distrust cards? Genial cards? Then for once I join with our sad
Philomel here:--

    'Alas for man, he hath small sense
    Of genial trust and confidence.'

Good-bye!"

Sauntering and chatting here and there, again, he with the book at
length seems fatigued, looks round for a seat, and spying a
partly-vacant settee drawn up against the side, drops down there; soon,
like his chance neighbor, who happens to be the good merchant, becoming
not a little interested in the scene more immediately before him; a
party at whist; two cream-faced, giddy, unpolished youths, the one in a
red cravat, the other in a green, opposed to two bland, grave, handsome,
self-possessed men of middle age, decorously dressed in a sort of
professional black, and apparently doctors of some eminence in the civil
law.

By-and-by, after a preliminary scanning of the new comer next him the
good merchant, sideways leaning over, whispers behind a crumpled copy of
the Ode which he holds: "Sir, I don't like the looks of those two, do
you?"

"Hardly," was the whispered reply; "those colored cravats are not in the
best taste, at least not to mine; but my taste is no rule for all."

"You mistake; I mean the other two, and I don't refer to dress, but
countenance. I confess I am not familiar with such gentry any further
than reading about them in the papers--but those two are--are sharpers,
aint they?"

"Far be from us the captious and fault-finding spirit, my dear sir."

"Indeed, sir, I would not find fault; I am little given that way: but
certainly, to say the least, these two youths can hardly be adepts,
while the opposed couple may be even more."

"You would not hint that the colored cravats would be so bungling as to
lose, and the dark cravats so dextrous as to cheat?--Sour imaginations,
my dear sir. Dismiss them. To little purpose have you read the Ode you
have there. Years and experience, I trust, have not sophisticated you. A
fresh and liberal construction would teach us to regard those four
players--indeed, this whole cabin-full of players--as playing at games
in which every player plays fair, and not a player but shall win."

"Now, you hardly mean that; because games in which all may win, such
games remain as yet in this world uninvented, I think."

"Come, come," luxuriously laying himself back, and casting a free glance
upon the players, "fares all paid; digestion sound; care, toil, penury,
grief, unknown; lounging on this sofa, with waistband relaxed, why not
be cheerfully resigned to one's fate, nor peevishly pick holes in the
blessed fate of the world?"

Upon this, the good merchant, after staring long and hard, and then
rubbing his forehead, fell into meditation, at first uneasy, but at last
composed, and in the end, once more addressed his companion: "Well, I
see it's good to out with one's private thoughts now and then. Somehow,
I don't know why, a certain misty suspiciousness seems inseparable from
most of one's private notions about some men and some things; but once
out with these misty notions, and their mere contact with other men's
soon dissipates, or, at least, modifies them."

"You think I have done you good, then? may be, I have. But don't
thank me, don't thank me. If by words, casually delivered in the
social hour, I do any good to right or left, it is but involuntary
influence--locust-tree sweetening the herbage under it; no merit at
all; mere wholesome accident, of a wholesome nature.--Don't you see?"

Another stare from the good merchant, and both were silent again.

Finding his book, hitherto resting on his lap, rather irksome there, the
owner now places it edgewise on the settee, between himself and
neighbor; in so doing, chancing to expose the lettering on the
back--"_Black Rapids Coal Company_"--which the good merchant,
scrupulously honorable, had much ado to avoid reading, so directly would
it have fallen under his eye, had he not conscientiously averted it. On
a sudden, as if just reminded of something, the stranger starts up, and
moves away, in his haste leaving his book; which the merchant observing,
without delay takes it up, and, hurrying after, civilly returns it; in
which act he could not avoid catching sight by an involuntary glance of
part of the lettering.

"Thank you, thank you, my good sir," said the other, receiving the
volume, and was resuming his retreat, when the merchant spoke: "Excuse
me, but are you not in some way connected with the--the Coal Company I
have heard of?"

"There is more than one Coal Company that may be heard of, my good sir,"
smiled the other, pausing with an expression of painful impatience,
disinterestedly mastered.

"But you are connected with one in particular.--The 'Black Rapids,' are
you not?"

"How did you find that out?"

"Well, sir, I have heard rather tempting information of your Company."

"Who is your informant, pray," somewhat coldly.

"A--a person by the name of Ringman."

"Don't know him. But, doubtless, there are plenty who know our Company,
whom our Company does not know; in the same way that one may know an
individual, yet be unknown to him.--Known this Ringman long? Old friend,
I suppose.--But pardon, I must leave you."

"Stay, sir, that--that stock."

"Stock?"

"Yes, it's a little irregular, perhaps, but----"

"Dear me, you don't think of doing any business with me, do you? In my
official capacity I have not been authenticated to you. This
transfer-book, now," holding it up so as to bring the lettering in
sight, "how do you know that it may not be a bogus one? And I, being
personally a stranger to you, how can you have confidence in me?"

"Because," knowingly smiled the good merchant, "if you were other than I
have confidence that you are, hardly would you challenge distrust that
way."

"But you have not examined my book."

"What need to, if already I believe that it is what it is lettered to
be?"

"But you had better. It might suggest doubts."

"Doubts, may be, it might suggest, but not knowledge; for how, by
examining the book, should I think I knew any more than I now think I
do; since, if it be the true book, I think it so already; and since if
it be otherwise, then I have never seen the true one, and don't know
what that ought to look like."

"Your logic I will not criticize, but your confidence I admire, and
earnestly, too, jocose as was the method I took to draw it out. Enough,
we will go to yonder table, and if there be any business which, either
in my private or official capacity, I can help you do, pray command
me."

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: The cabin on the ship--unlike the one in the woods--is where you go to play cards. The room is filled with people and papers--pamphlets containing poetry, to be exact. A silent older man passed them out earlier, and then everyone just tossed them on the floor. One man is reading the ode written on them about trusting your fellow man. This again? Apparently the guy is moved by what he reads there. Tassel shows up and asks this guy where the pamphlets came from. The guy has no clue. Tassel is a social bunny, and he wants to party. However, his temporary companion here doesn't play cards, drink, smoke, or tell stories. Tassel flutters away from that dude. Tassel sits down by the country merchant. This is Mr. Roberts, the guy who believed in Guinea and gave him a coin; he also believed in Weeds and gave him money after his sob story. Tassel and Mr. Roberts chat about the card players. There's a pair of young guys in cream suits each wearing a bright tie, one green and the other red. They're up against a pair of middle-aged guys all in black. Mr. Roberts doesn't trust these guys. Tassel thinks he means the young guys, since he's apparently been judging their outfits. No, Roberts means the older two. He thinks they must be cardsharps out to hoodwink the younger pair. Tassel basically goes, Pssshhhh, nah. Everyone here is playing fair, and they could all win. The two of them agree to disagree. Tassel puts his ledger down on the seat. Mr. Roberts looks away. A+ for not being a screen-creeper, Robbie. Tassel leaves the ledger there and walks away. Being a good dude, Mr. Roberts grabs it and takes it to him. He can't help but note that the binding on the ledger bears the title: Black Rapids Coal Company. Mr. Roberts is giddy. Can he has stocks? Tassel does not appear amused or forgiving about the fact that Mr. Roberts knows who he is and what he does. He gives him a hard time. Eventually he agrees to sell him some in another backroom deal. Tricksy.


prompt:
Chapter: CHAPTER XI. ONLY A PAGE OR SO.

The transaction concluded, the two still remained seated, falling into
familiar conversation, by degrees verging into that confidential sort of
sympathetic silence, the last refinement and luxury of unaffected good
feeling. A kind of social superstition, to suppose that to be truly
friendly one must be saying friendly words all the time, any more than
be doing friendly deeds continually. True friendliness, like true
religion, being in a sort independent of works.

At length, the good merchant, whose eyes were pensively resting upon the
gay tables in the distance, broke the spell by saying that, from the
spectacle before them, one would little divine what other quarters of
the boat might reveal. He cited the case, accidentally encountered but
an hour or two previous, of a shrunken old miser, clad in shrunken old
moleskin, stretched out, an invalid, on a bare plank in the emigrants'
quarters, eagerly clinging to life and lucre, though the one was gasping
for outlet, and about the other he was in torment lest death, or some
other unprincipled cut-purse, should be the means of his losing it; by
like feeble tenure holding lungs and pouch, and yet knowing and
desiring nothing beyond them; for his mind, never raised above mould,
was now all but mouldered away. To such a degree, indeed, that he had no
trust in anything, not even in his parchment bonds, which, the better to
preserve from the tooth of time, he had packed down and sealed up, like
brandy peaches, in a tin case of spirits.

The worthy man proceeded at some length with these dispiriting
particulars. Nor would his cheery companion wholly deny that there might
be a point of view from which such a case of extreme want of confidence
might, to the humane mind, present features not altogether welcome as
wine and olives after dinner. Still, he was not without compensatory
considerations, and, upon the whole, took his companion to task for
evincing what, in a good-natured, round-about way, he hinted to be a
somewhat jaundiced sentimentality. Nature, he added, in Shakespeare's
words, had meal and bran; and, rightly regarded, the bran in its way was
not to be condemned.

The other was not disposed to question the justice of Shakespeare's
thought, but would hardly admit the propriety of the application in this
instance, much less of the comment. So, after some further temperate
discussion of the pitiable miser, finding that they could not entirely
harmonize, the merchant cited another case, that of the negro cripple.
But his companion suggested whether the alleged hardships of that
alleged unfortunate might not exist more in the pity of the observer
than the experience of the observed. He knew nothing about the cripple,
nor had seen him, but ventured to surmise that, could one but get at the
real state of his heart, he would be found about as happy as most men,
if not, in fact, full as happy as the speaker himself. He added that
negroes were by nature a singularly cheerful race; no one ever heard of
a native-born African Zimmermann or Torquemada; that even from religion
they dismissed all gloom; in their hilarious rituals they danced, so to
speak, and, as it were, cut pigeon-wings. It was improbable, therefore,
that a negro, however reduced to his stumps by fortune, could be ever
thrown off the legs of a laughing philosophy.

Foiled again, the good merchant would not desist, but ventured still a
third case, that of the man with the weed, whose story, as narrated by
himself, and confirmed and filled out by the testimony of a certain man
in a gray coat, whom the merchant had afterwards met, he now proceeded
to give; and that, without holding back those particulars disclosed by
the second informant, but which delicacy had prevented the unfortunate
man himself from touching upon.

But as the good merchant could, perhaps, do better justice to the man
than the story, we shall venture to tell it in other words than his,
though not to any other effect.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: After their backroom deal, Mr. Roberts and Tassel chat. Looking back on the gamblers, Mr. Roberts wonders what other secret lives the ship holds. He's a curious guy. Mr. Roberts brings up a story of a dying miser he came across maybe an hour or so ago. The miser didn't want to let go of life due to his love of money and his fear of losing it by death or theft. Mr. Roberts wants to feel pity for this man; Tassel, not so much. Mr. Roberts then brings up Guinea and his difficult life, which is dependent on charity. Tassel counters again. This time it's with an offensive notion that black people just don't get sad or stay sad. Mr. Roberts, undaunted in his goal to demonstrate that pitying one's fellow human is a valid thing to do, references the man with the weed on his hat. Reminder: this is the dude that 1) told Mr. Roberts a sob-story about being a down-and-out fellow mason to get moolah; 2) weirded out the college kid; and 3) told Mr. Roberts about the company for which Tassel works. Apparently, Grey-and-white, the man collecting money for widows and orphans, told Mr. Roberts more about Weeds. We're going to need a Facebook group or yearbook or something to keep all these peeps straight. The narrator then throws some mad shade on Mr. Roberts when he lets us know that while Mr. Roberts can do right by Weeds, he can't really deliver on the story about Weeds. Harsh.


prompt:
Chapter: CHAPTER XII. STORY OF THE UNFORTUNATE MAN, FROM WHICH MAY BE GATHERED WHETHER OR NO HE HAS BEEN JUSTLY SO ENTITLED.

It appeared that the unfortunate man had had for a wife one of those
natures, anomalously vicious, which would almost tempt a metaphysical
lover of our species to doubt whether the human form be, in all cases,
conclusive evidence of humanity, whether, sometimes, it may not be a
kind of unpledged and indifferent tabernacle, and whether, once for all
to crush the saying of Thrasea, (an unaccountable one, considering that
he himself was so good a man) that "he who hates vice, hates humanity,"
it should not, in self-defense, be held for a reasonable maxim, that
none but the good are human.

Goneril was young, in person lithe and straight, too straight, indeed,
for a woman, a complexion naturally rosy, and which would have been
charmingly so, but for a certain hardness and bakedness, like that of
the glazed colors on stone-ware. Her hair was of a deep, rich chestnut,
but worn in close, short curls all round her head. Her Indian figure was
not without its impairing effect on her bust, while her mouth would have
been pretty but for a trace of moustache. Upon the whole, aided by the
resources of the toilet, her appearance at distance was such, that some
might have thought her, if anything, rather beautiful, though of a style
of beauty rather peculiar and cactus-like.

It was happy for Goneril that her more striking peculiarities were less
of the person than of temper and taste. One hardly knows how to reveal,
that, while having a natural antipathy to such things as the breast of
chicken, or custard, or peach, or grape, Goneril could yet in private
make a satisfactory lunch on hard crackers and brawn of ham. She liked
lemons, and the only kind of candy she loved were little dried sticks of
blue clay, secretly carried in her pocket. Withal she had hard, steady
health like a squaw's, with as firm a spirit and resolution. Some other
points about her were likewise such as pertain to the women of savage
life. Lithe though she was, she loved supineness, but upon occasion
could endure like a stoic. She was taciturn, too. From early morning
till about three o'clock in the afternoon she would seldom speak--it
taking that time to thaw her, by all accounts, into but talking terms
with humanity. During the interval she did little but look, and keep
looking out of her large, metallic eyes, which her enemies called cold
as a cuttle-fish's, but which by her were esteemed gazelle-like; for
Goneril was not without vanity. Those who thought they best knew her,
often wondered what happiness such a being could take in life, not
considering the happiness which is to be had by some natures in the very
easy way of simply causing pain to those around them. Those who suffered
from Goneril's strange nature, might, with one of those hyberboles to
which the resentful incline, have pronounced her some kind of toad; but
her worst slanderers could never, with any show of justice, have accused
her of being a toady. In a large sense she possessed the virtue of
independence of mind. Goneril held it flattery to hint praise even of
the absent, and even if merited; but honesty, to fling people's imputed
faults into their faces. This was thought malice, but it certainly was
not passion. Passion is human. Like an icicle-dagger, Goneril at once
stabbed and froze; so at least they said; and when she saw frankness and
innocence tyrannized into sad nervousness under her spell, according to
the same authority, inly she chewed her blue clay, and you could mark
that she chuckled. These peculiarities were strange and unpleasing; but
another was alleged, one really incomprehensible. In company she had a
strange way of touching, as by accident, the arm or hand of comely young
men, and seemed to reap a secret delight from it, but whether from the
humane satisfaction of having given the evil-touch, as it is called, or
whether it was something else in her, not equally wonderful, but quite
as deplorable, remained an enigma.

Needless to say what distress was the unfortunate man's, when, engaged
in conversation with company, he would suddenly perceive his Goneril
bestowing her mysterious touches, especially in such cases where the
strangeness of the thing seemed to strike upon the touched person,
notwithstanding good-breeding forbade his proposing the mystery, on the
spot, as a subject of discussion for the company. In these cases, too,
the unfortunate man could never endure so much as to look upon the
touched young gentleman afterwards, fearful of the mortification of
meeting in his countenance some kind of more or less quizzingly-knowing
expression. He would shudderingly shun the young gentleman. So that
here, to the husband, Goneril's touch had the dread operation of the
heathen taboo. Now Goneril brooked no chiding. So, at favorable times,
he, in a wary manner, and not indelicately, would venture in private
interviews gently to make distant allusions to this questionable
propensity. She divined him. But, in her cold loveless way, said it was
witless to be telling one's dreams, especially foolish ones; but if the
unfortunate man liked connubially to rejoice his soul with such
chimeras, much connubial joy might they give him. All this was sad--a
touching case--but all might, perhaps, have been borne by the
unfortunate man--conscientiously mindful of his vow--for better or for
worse--to love and cherish his dear Goneril so long as kind heaven might
spare her to him--but when, after all that had happened, the devil of
jealousy entered her, a calm, clayey, cakey devil, for none other could
possess her, and the object of that deranged jealousy, her own child, a
little girl of seven, her father's consolation and pet; when he saw
Goneril artfully torment the little innocent, and then play the maternal
hypocrite with it, the unfortunate man's patient long-suffering gave
way. Knowing that she would neither confess nor amend, and might,
possibly, become even worse than she was, he thought it but duty as a
father, to withdraw the child from her; but, loving it as he did, he
could not do so without accompanying it into domestic exile himself.
Which, hard though it was, he did. Whereupon the whole female
neighborhood, who till now had little enough admired dame Goneril, broke
out in indignation against a husband, who, without assigning a cause,
could deliberately abandon the wife of his bosom, and sharpen the sting
to her, too, by depriving her of the solace of retaining her offspring.
To all this, self-respect, with Christian charity towards Goneril, long
kept the unfortunate man dumb. And well had it been had he continued so;
for when, driven to desperation, he hinted something of the truth of the
case, not a soul would credit it; while for Goneril, she pronounced all
he said to be a malicious invention. Ere long, at the suggestion of some
woman's-rights women, the injured wife began a suit, and, thanks to able
counsel and accommodating testimony, succeeded in such a way, as not
only to recover custody of the child, but to get such a settlement
awarded upon a separation, as to make penniless the unfortunate man (so
he averred), besides, through the legal sympathy she enlisted, effecting
a judicial blasting of his private reputation. What made it yet more
lamentable was, that the unfortunate man, thinking that, before the
court, his wisest plan, as well as the most Christian besides, being, as
he deemed, not at variance with the truth of the matter, would be to put
forth the plea of the mental derangement of Goneril, which done, he
could, with less of mortification to himself, and odium to her, reveal
in self-defense those eccentricities which had led to his retirement
from the joys of wedlock, had much ado in the end to prevent this charge
of derangement from fatally recoiling upon himself--especially, when,
among other things, he alleged her mysterious teachings. In vain did his
counsel, striving to make out the derangement to be where, in fact, if
anywhere, it was, urge that, to hold otherwise, to hold that such a
being as Goneril was sane, this was constructively a libel upon
womankind. Libel be it. And all ended by the unfortunate man's
subsequently getting wind of Goneril's intention to procure him to be
permanently committed for a lunatic. Upon which he fled, and was now an
innocent outcast, wandering forlorn in the great valley of the
Mississippi, with a weed on his hat for the loss of his Goneril; for he
had lately seen by the papers that she was dead, and thought it but
proper to comply with the prescribed form of mourning in such cases. For
some days past he had been trying to get money enough to return to his
child, and was but now started with inadequate funds.

Now all of this, from the beginning, the good merchant could not but
consider rather hard for the unfortunate man.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: The narrator tells the story he claims to be able to better relate than Mr. Roberts can. He describes Goneril, the wife of the "unfortunate man" . Heads up: this description is m-e-a-n. At first, Goneril's biggest flaws seem to be that she prefers lemons to peaches. She's clearly a monster. Goneril's apparently also cold, heartless, scary, and touchy with other men. Not touchy, as in easily irritated, but touchy as in she gently grazes guys' arms, shoulders, hands, etc. Major creep vibe, plus it makes her husband uneasy. Goneril's husband Weeds doesn't make a fuss, because he's sort of super terrified of her. Real problem #1: Goneril starts to get jealous of Weeds and his attention. Real problem #2: This jealousy extends to their daughter. Real problem #3: Weeds catches Goneril "tormenting" their daughter . The unfortunate Weeds takes his daughter and leaves his wife. The townswomen who weren't really keen on Goneril before cry out against this move. Pulling no punches, Goneril takes her hubby to court. Weeds reveals everything about Goneril and her weird ways, but she ultimately gets the daughter back and tries to get Weeds committed to an asylum. This is some soap-opera level drama-rama. Weeds is now ostracized. He spends his days travelling around with a weed in his cap to remember Goneril, who has apparently died . Now Weeds is just trying to get his daughter back. Too bad he's broke.


prompt:
Chapter: CHAPTER XIII. THE MAN WITH THE TRAVELING-CAP EVINCES MUCH HUMANITY, AND IN A WAY WHICH WOULD SEEM TO SHOW HIM TO BE ONE OF THE MOST LOGICAL OF OPTIMISTS.

Years ago, a grave American savant, being in London, observed at an
evening party there, a certain coxcombical fellow, as he thought, an
absurd ribbon in his lapel, and full of smart persiflage, whisking about
to the admiration of as many as were disposed to admire. Great was the
savan's disdain; but, chancing ere long to find himself in a corner with
the jackanapes, got into conversation with him, when he was somewhat
ill-prepared for the good sense of the jackanapes, but was altogether
thrown aback, upon subsequently being whispered by a friend that the
jackanapes was almost as great a savan as himself, being no less a
personage than Sir Humphrey Davy.

The above anecdote is given just here by way of an anticipative reminder
to such readers as, from the kind of jaunty levity, or what may have
passed for such, hitherto for the most part appearing in the man with
the traveling-cap, may have been tempted into a more or less hasty
estimate of him; that such readers, when they find the same person, as
they presently will, capable of philosophic and humanitarian
discourse--no mere casual sentence or two as heretofore at times, but
solidly sustained throughout an almost entire sitting; that they may
not, like the American savan, be thereupon betrayed into any surprise
incompatible with their own good opinion of their previous penetration.

The merchant's narration being ended, the other would not deny but that
it did in some degree affect him. He hoped he was not without proper
feeling for the unfortunate man. But he begged to know in what spirit he
bore his alleged calamities. Did he despond or have confidence?

The merchant did not, perhaps, take the exact import of the last member
of the question; but answered, that, if whether the unfortunate man was
becomingly resigned under his affliction or no, was the point, he could
say for him that resigned he was, and to an exemplary degree: for not
only, so far as known, did he refrain from any one-sided reflections
upon human goodness and human justice, but there was observable in him
an air of chastened reliance, and at times tempered cheerfulness.

Upon which the other observed, that since the unfortunate man's alleged
experience could not be deemed very conciliatory towards a view of human
nature better than human nature was, it largely redounded to his
fair-mindedness, as well as piety, that under the alleged dissuasives,
apparently so, from philanthropy, he had not, in a moment of excitement,
been warped over to the ranks of the misanthropes. He doubted not,
also, that with such a man his experience would, in the end, act by a
complete and beneficent inversion, and so far from shaking his
confidence in his kind, confirm it, and rivet it. Which would the more
surely be the case, did he (the unfortunate man) at last become
satisfied (as sooner or later he probably would be) that in the
distraction of his mind his Goneril had not in all respects had fair
play. At all events, the description of the lady, charity could not but
regard as more or less exaggerated, and so far unjust. The truth
probably was that she was a wife with some blemishes mixed with some
beauties. But when the blemishes were displayed, her husband, no adept
in the female nature, had tried to use reason with her, instead of
something far more persuasive. Hence his failure to convince and
convert. The act of withdrawing from her, seemed, under the
circumstances, abrupt. In brief, there were probably small faults on
both sides, more than balanced by large virtues; and one should not be
hasty in judging.

When the merchant, strange to say, opposed views so calm and impartial,
and again, with some warmth, deplored the case of the unfortunate man,
his companion, not without seriousness, checked him, saying, that this
would never do; that, though but in the most exceptional case, to admit
the existence of unmerited misery, more particularly if alleged to have
been brought about by unhindered arts of the wicked, such an admission
was, to say the least, not prudent; since, with some, it might
unfavorably bias their most important persuasions. Not that those
persuasions were legitimately servile to such influences. Because,
since the common occurrences of life could never, in the nature of
things, steadily look one way and tell one story, as flags in the
trade-wind; hence, if the conviction of a Providence, for instance, were
in any way made dependent upon such variabilities as everyday events,
the degree of that conviction would, in thinking minds, be subject to
fluctuations akin to those of the stock-exchange during a long and
uncertain war. Here he glanced aside at his transfer-book, and after a
moment's pause continued. It was of the essence of a right conviction of
the divine nature, as with a right conviction of the human, that, based
less on experience than intuition, it rose above the zones of weather.

When now the merchant, with all his heart, coincided with this (as being
a sensible, as well as religious person, he could not but do), his
companion expressed satisfaction, that, in an age of some distrust on
such subjects, he could yet meet with one who shared with him, almost to
the full, so sound and sublime a confidence.

Still, he was far from the illiberality of denying that philosophy duly
bounded was not permissible. Only he deemed it at least desirable that,
when such a case as that alleged of the unfortunate man was made the
subject of philosophic discussion, it should be so philosophized upon,
as not to afford handles to those unblessed with the true light. For,
but to grant that there was so much as a mystery about such a case,
might by those persons be held for a tacit surrender of the question.
And as for the apparent license temporarily permitted sometimes, to the
bad over the good (as was by implication alleged with regard to Goneril
and the unfortunate man), it might be injudicious there to lay too much
polemic stress upon the doctrine of future retribution as the
vindication of present impunity. For though, indeed, to the right-minded
that doctrine was true, and of sufficient solace, yet with the perverse
the polemic mention of it might but provoke the shallow, though
mischievous conceit, that such a doctrine was but tantamount to the one
which should affirm that Providence was not now, but was going to be. In
short, with all sorts of cavilers, it was best, both for them and
everybody, that whoever had the true light should stick behind the
secure Malakoff of confidence, nor be tempted forth to hazardous
skirmishes on the open ground of reason. Therefore, he deemed it
unadvisable in the good man, even in the privacy of his own mind, or in
communion with a congenial one, to indulge in too much latitude of
philosophizing, or, indeed, of compassionating, since this might, beget
an indiscreet habit of thinking and feeling which might unexpectedly
betray him upon unsuitable occasions. Indeed, whether in private or
public, there was nothing which a good man was more bound to guard
himself against than, on some topics, the emotional unreserve of his
natural heart; for, that the natural heart, in certain points, was not
what it might be, men had been authoritatively admonished.

But he thought he might be getting dry.

The merchant, in his good-nature, thought otherwise, and said that he
would be glad to refresh himself with such fruit all day. It was sitting
under a ripe pulpit, and better such a seat than under a ripe
peach-tree.

The other was pleased to find that he had not, as he feared, been
prosing; but would rather not be considered in the formal light of a
preacher; he preferred being still received in that of the equal and
genial companion. To which end, throwing still more of sociability into
his manner, he again reverted to the unfortunate man. Take the very
worst view of that case; admit that his Goneril was, indeed, a Goneril;
how fortunate to be at last rid of this Goneril, both by nature and by
law? If he were acquainted with the unfortunate man, instead of
condoling with him, he would congratulate him. Great good fortune had
this unfortunate man. Lucky dog, he dared say, after all.

To which the merchant replied, that he earnestly hoped it might be so,
and at any rate he tried his best to comfort himself with the persuasion
that, if the unfortunate man was not happy in this world, he would, at
least, be so in another.

His companion made no question of the unfortunate man's happiness in
both worlds; and, presently calling for some champagne, invited the
merchant to partake, upon the playful plea that, whatever notions other
than felicitous ones he might associate with the unfortunate man, a
little champagne would readily bubble away.

At intervals they slowly quaffed several glasses in silence and
thoughtfulness. At last the merchant's expressive face flushed, his eye
moistly beamed, his lips trembled with an imaginative and feminine
sensibility. Without sending a single fume to his head, the wine seemed
to shoot to his heart, and begin soothsaying there. "Ah," he cried,
pushing his glass from him, "Ah, wine is good, and confidence is good;
but can wine or confidence percolate down through all the stony strata
of hard considerations, and drop warmly and ruddily into the cold cave
of truth? Truth will _not_ be comforted. Led by dear charity, lured by
sweet hope, fond fancy essays this feat; but in vain; mere dreams and
ideals, they explode in your hand, leaving naught but the scorching
behind!"

"Why, why, why!" in amaze, at the burst: "bless me, if _In vino veritas_
be a true saying, then, for all the fine confidence you professed with
me, just now, distrust, deep distrust, underlies it; and ten thousand
strong, like the Irish Rebellion, breaks out in you now. That wine, good
wine, should do it! Upon my soul," half seriously, half humorously,
securing the bottle, "you shall drink no more of it. Wine was meant to
gladden the heart, not grieve it; to heighten confidence, not depress
it."

Sobered, shamed, all but confounded, by this raillery, the most telling
rebuke under such circumstances, the merchant stared about him, and
then, with altered mien, stammeringly confessed, that he was almost as
much surprised as his companion, at what had escaped him. He did not
understand it; was quite at a loss to account for such a rhapsody
popping out of him unbidden. It could hardly be the champagne; he felt
his brain unaffected; in fact, if anything, the wine had acted upon it
something like white of egg in coffee, clarifying and brightening.

"Brightening? brightening it may be, but less like the white of egg in
coffee, than like stove-lustre on a stove--black, brightening seriously,
I repent calling for the champagne. To a temperament like yours,
champagne is not to be recommended. Pray, my dear sir, do you feel quite
yourself again? Confidence restored?"

"I hope so; I think I may say it is so. But we have had a long talk, and
I think I must retire now."

So saying, the merchant rose, and making his adieus, left the table with
the air of one, mortified at having been tempted by his own honest
goodness, accidentally stimulated into making mad disclosures--to
himself as to another--of the queer, unaccountable caprices of his
natural heart.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: We interrupt our narrator's regularly scheduled announcement with an announcement from...our narrator. He says: don't judge. Specifically, don't be like the American scholar in London who prejudged a dude for his fancy duds before he found out that the dude was also a great sage. How embarrassing. This is all to remind the reader not to judge Tassel for not being sympathetic earlier, because we'd then unfairly assume he's heartless. Apparently, Tassel's got boatloads of compassion for the predicament in which Weeds finds himself. Mr. Roberts and Tassel bond over their shared pity. Does Weeds still have faith in his fellow man? Tassel wants to know. Mr. Roberts misunderstands and says that Weeds is handling things well and is resigned to his life. Tassel's all, Very good, but I hope he doesn't lose confidence in his fellow man. While we're on the subject, it's probably not fair to take the unfortunate Weeds's word for it. After all, husband and wife probably both have their flaws and their good points. Mr. Roberts veritably flips out at this suggestion. How could anyone feel anything but sympathy? Tassel gets Mr. Roberts to cool off by making the argument that to distrust Goneril to such a degree is to lose faith in Providence and the goodness that stems from one's belief. Besides, Tassel adds, being too compassionate will train your head and your heart to be too easily swayed by emotion, and then you'll just be a fool in public. Oh, and another thing: wishing revenge on Goneril is another ding against Providence, because it shows you don't have faith in what God is doing now, but are hoping for something from God in the future. Doubting Providence, Tassel continues, is like putting your faith in the stock market during wartime. Translation: it's risky. At this point, Tassel looks sideways at his exchange book. Mr. Roberts is cowed and fully on board with Tassel's survey of things. Tassel hopes he wasn't being a bossy know-it-all. Mr. Roberts is all, No, I like it. You're better than a preacher. This makes Tassel uneasy, because he prefers to just chat like equals. To get back on the same level again, he pokes at Goneril: Weeds is better off without her, anyway--his misfortune is really cause for celebration. They men decide to drink to that. A lot, a lot. Once fully under the effects of champagne, Mr. Roberts gets weepy about how evil Goneril is all over again. Tassel is irritated as all get-out: Aha. The truth comes out. You, sir, have no faith in your fellow man. What's more, I'm cutting you off. So there. Mr. Roberts is embarrassed.


prompt:
Chapter: CHAPTER XIV. WORTH THE CONSIDERATION OF THOSE TO WHOM IT MAY PROVE WORTH CONSIDERING.

As the last chapter was begun with a reminder looking forwards, so the
present must consist of one glancing backwards.

To some, it may raise a degree of surprise that one so full of
confidence, as the merchant has throughout shown himself, up to the
moment of his late sudden impulsiveness, should, in that instance, have
betrayed such a depth of discontent. He may be thought inconsistent, and
even so he is. But for this, is the author to be blamed? True, it may be
urged that there is nothing a writer of fiction should more carefully
see to, as there is nothing a sensible reader will more carefully look
for, than that, in the depiction of any character, its consistency
should be preserved. But this, though at first blush, seeming reasonable
enough, may, upon a closer view, prove not so much so. For how does it
couple with another requirement--equally insisted upon, perhaps--that,
while to all fiction is allowed some play of invention, yet, fiction
based on fact should never be contradictory to it; and is it not a fact,
that, in real life, a consistent character is a _rara avis_? Which
being so, the distaste of readers to the contrary sort in books, can
hardly arise from any sense of their untrueness. It may rather be from
perplexity as to understanding them. But if the acutest sage be often at
his wits' ends to understand living character, shall those who are not
sages expect to run and read character in those mere phantoms which flit
along a page, like shadows along a wall? That fiction, where every
character can, by reason of its consistency, be comprehended at a
glance, either exhibits but sections of character, making them appear
for wholes, or else is very untrue to reality; while, on the other hand,
that author who draws a character, even though to common view
incongruous in its parts, as the flying-squirrel, and, at different
periods, as much at variance with itself as the butterfly is with the
caterpillar into which it changes, may yet, in so doing, be not false
but faithful to facts.

If reason be judge, no writer has produced such inconsistent characters
as nature herself has. It must call for no small sagacity in a reader
unerringly to discriminate in a novel between the inconsistencies of
conception and those of life as elsewhere. Experience is the only guide
here; but as no one man can be coextensive with _what is_, it may be
unwise in every ease to rest upon it. When the duck-billed beaver of
Australia was first brought stuffed to England, the naturalists,
appealing to their classifications, maintained that there was, in
reality, no such creature; the bill in the specimen must needs be, in
some way, artificially stuck on.

But let nature, to the perplexity of the naturalists, produce her
duck-billed beavers as she may, lesser authors some may hold, have no
business to be perplexing readers with duck-billed characters. Always,
they should represent human nature not in obscurity, but transparency,
which, indeed, is the practice with most novelists, and is, perhaps, in
certain cases, someway felt to be a kind of honor rendered by them to
their kind. But, whether it involve honor or otherwise might be mooted,
considering that, if these waters of human nature can be so readily seen
through, it may be either that they are very pure or very shallow. Upon
the whole, it might rather be thought, that he, who, in view of its
inconsistencies, says of human nature the same that, in view of its
contrasts, is said of the divine nature, that it is past finding out,
thereby evinces a better appreciation of it than he who, by always
representing it in a clear light, leaves it to be inferred that he
clearly knows all about it.

But though there is a prejudice against inconsistent characters in
books, yet the prejudice bears the other way, when what seemed at first
their inconsistency, afterwards, by the skill of the writer, turns out
to be their good keeping. The great masters excel in nothing so much as
in this very particular. They challenge astonishment at the tangled web
of some character, and then raise admiration still greater at their
satisfactory unraveling of it; in this way throwing open, sometimes to
the understanding even of school misses, the last complications of that
spirit which is affirmed by its Creator to be fearfully and wonderfully
made.

At least, something like this is claimed for certain psychological
novelists; nor will the claim be here disputed. Yet, as touching this
point, it may prove suggestive, that all those sallies of ingenuity,
having for their end the revelation of human nature on fixed principles,
have, by the best judges, been excluded with contempt from the ranks of
the sciences--palmistry, physiognomy, phrenology, psychology. Likewise,
the fact, that in all ages such conflicting views have, by the most
eminent minds, been taken of mankind, would, as with other topics, seem
some presumption of a pretty general and pretty thorough ignorance of
it. Which may appear the less improbable if it be considered that, after
poring over the best novels professing to portray human nature, the
studious youth will still run risk of being too often at fault upon
actually entering the world; whereas, had he been furnished with a true
delineation, it ought to fare with him something as with a stranger
entering, map in hand, Boston town; the streets may be very crooked, he
may often pause; but, thanks to his true map, he does not hopelessly
lose his way. Nor, to this comparison, can it be an adequate objection,
that the twistings of the town are always the same, and those of human
nature subject to variation. The grand points of human nature are the
same to-day they were a thousand years ago. The only variability in them
is in expression, not in feature.

But as, in spite of seeming discouragement, some mathematicians are yet
in hopes of hitting upon an exact method of determining the longitude,
the more earnest psychologists may, in the face of previous failures,
still cherish expectations with regard to some mode of infallibly
discovering the heart of man.

But enough has been said by way of apology for whatever may have seemed
amiss or obscure in the character of the merchant; so nothing remains
but to turn to our comedy, or, rather, to pass from the comedy of
thought to that of action.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: The narrator has a lot to tell us, and in this chapter, the interruption is presented as direct commentary from the author. The narrator professes to be concerned with what the reader might see as inconsistency in the character of Mr. Roberts, once so trusting in his fellow man, now so doubtful. The narrator argues a few things: 1) Readers expect consistency in order to create the illusion of realism. 2) Inconsistency in a fictional character is more realistic because humans are inconsistent IRL. 3) Really, it's the writer's job to portray this inconsistency as believable. The narrator argues that this is a sort of map to human nature, which is as confounding a task as understanding divine nature. Even if there are a million ways to be inconsistent, humans have consistently been inconsistent in the same ways for thousands of years. Now, it's time to get back to our comedy. Yes, the author calls this a comedy. And so do we.