prompt:
Chapter: CHAPTER XXXIV. IN WHICH THE COSMOPOLITAN TELLS THE STORY OF THE GENTLEMAN MADMAN.

"Charlemont was a young merchant of French descent, living in St.
Louis--a man not deficient in mind, and possessed of that sterling and
captivating kindliness, seldom in perfection seen but in youthful
bachelors, united at times to a remarkable sort of gracefully
devil-may-care and witty good-humor. Of course, he was admired by
everybody, and loved, as only mankind can love, by not a few. But in his
twenty-ninth year a change came over him. Like one whose hair turns gray
in a night, so in a day Charlemont turned from affable to morose. His
acquaintances were passed without greeting; while, as for his
confidential friends, them he pointedly, unscrupulously, and with a kind
of fierceness, cut dead.

"One, provoked by such conduct, would fain have resented it with words
as disdainful; while another, shocked by the change, and, in concern for
a friend, magnanimously overlooking affronts, implored to know what
sudden, secret grief had distempered him. But from resentment and from
tenderness Charlemont alike turned away.

"Ere long, to the general surprise, the merchant Charlemont was
gazetted, and the same day it was reported that he had withdrawn from
town, but not before placing his entire property in the hands of
responsible assignees for the benefit of creditors.

"Whither he had vanished, none could guess. At length, nothing being
heard, it was surmised that he must have made away with himself--a
surmise, doubtless, originating in the remembrance of the change some
months previous to his bankruptcy--a change of a sort only to be
ascribed to a mind suddenly thrown from its balance.

"Years passed. It was spring-time, and lo, one bright morning,
Charlemont lounged into the St. Louis coffee-houses--gay, polite,
humane, companionable, and dressed in the height of costly elegance. Not
only was he alive, but he was himself again. Upon meeting with old
acquaintances, he made the first advances, and in such a manner that it
was impossible not to meet him half-way. Upon other old friends, whom he
did not chance casually to meet, he either personally called, or left
his card and compliments for them; and to several, sent presents of game
or hampers of wine.

"They say the world is sometimes harshly unforgiving, but it was not so
to Charlemont. The world feels a return of love for one who returns to
it as he did. Expressive of its renewed interest was a whisper, an
inquiring whisper, how now, exactly, so long after his bankruptcy, it
fared with Charlemont's purse. Rumor, seldom at a loss for answers,
replied that he had spent nine years in Marseilles in France, and there
acquiring a second fortune, had returned with it, a man devoted
henceforth to genial friendships.

"Added years went by, and the restored wanderer still the same; or
rather, by his noble qualities, grew up like golden maize in the
encouraging sun of good opinions. But still the latent wonder was, what
had caused that change in him at a period when, pretty much as now, he
was, to all appearance, in the possession of the same fortune, the same
friends, the same popularity. But nobody thought it would be the thing
to question him here.

"At last, at a dinner at his house, when all the guests but one had
successively departed; this remaining guest, an old acquaintance, being
just enough under the influence of wine to set aside the fear of
touching upon a delicate point, ventured, in a way which perhaps spoke
more favorably for his heart than his tact, to beg of his host to
explain the one enigma of his life. Deep melancholy overspread the
before cheery face of Charlemont; he sat for some moments tremulously
silent; then pushing a full decanter towards the guest, in a choked
voice, said: 'No, no! when by art, and care, and time, flowers are made
to bloom over a grave, who would seek to dig all up again only to know
the mystery?--The wine.' When both glasses were filled, Charlemont took
his, and lifting it, added lowly: 'If ever, in days to come, you shall
see ruin at hand, and, thinking you understand mankind, shall tremble
for your friendships, and tremble for your pride; and, partly through
love for the one and fear for the other, shall resolve to be beforehand
with the world, and save it from a sin by prospectively taking that sin
to yourself, then will you do as one I now dream of once did, and like
him will you suffer; but how fortunate and how grateful should you be,
if like him, after all that had happened, you could be a little happy
again.'

"When the guest went away, it was with the persuasion, that though
outwardly restored in mind as in fortune, yet, some taint of
Charlemont's old malady survived, and that it was not well for friends
to touch one dangerous string."

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

completion: Charlemont was young. He was French. He was well-off. He was cool. Everybody loved Charlemont, and Charlemont loved everybody. Then one day something happened. Nobody knows what happened, but all of a sudden, out of the blue, without warning, Charlemont...stopped...loving...people. Oh, no. Charlemont ditched all his casual friends, and he straight-up burned all his bridges with his good friends. Charlemont disappeared. Some said Charlemont went into debt. Then, just as randomly as before, Charlemont was back. Charlemont made up with everybody and bought them gifts, and they all loved him again. No one ever asked what happened when he went all emo. Until... One day... When... The last guest at one of Charlemont's parties worked up the nerve, after drinking a lot of wine, to ask: What's your damage, Heather? Charlemont got quiet. He called for more wine but gave a mystifying response basically amounting to: You wouldn't get it. You weren't there. Charlemont's guest then just left, knowing that even if his outside was happy, Charlemont still had some dark stuff going on inside.


prompt:
Chapter: CHAPTER XXXV. IN WHICH THE COSMOPOLITAN STRIKINGLY EVINCES THE ARTLESSNESS OF HIS NATURE.

"Well, what do you think of the story of Charlemont?" mildly asked he
who had told it.

"A very strange one," answered the auditor, who had been such not with
perfect ease, "but is it true?"

"Of course not; it is a story which I told with the purpose of every
story-teller--to amuse. Hence, if it seem strange to you, that
strangeness is the romance; it is what contrasts it with real life; it
is the invention, in brief, the fiction as opposed to the fact. For do
but ask yourself, my dear Charlie," lovingly leaning over towards him,
"I rest it with your own heart now, whether such a forereaching motive
as Charlemont hinted he had acted on in his change--whether such a
motive, I say, were a sort of one at all justified by the nature of
human society? Would you, for one, turn the cold shoulder to a friend--a
convivial one, say, whose pennilessness should be suddenly revealed to
you?"

"How can you ask me, my dear Frank? You know I would scorn such
meanness." But rising somewhat disconcerted--"really, early as it is, I
think I must retire; my head," putting up his hand to it, "feels
unpleasantly; this confounded elixir of logwood, little as I drank of
it, has played the deuce with me."

"Little as you drank of this elixir of logwood? Why, Charlie, you are
losing your mind. To talk so of the genuine, mellow old port. Yes, I
think that by all means you had better away, and sleep it off.
There--don't apologize--don't explain--go, go--I understand you exactly.
I will see you to-morrow."

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

completion: Charlie: Is this a true story? Frank: Nope. It's a good one, though. Makes you wonder about people's souls. For instance, would you abandon a friend who needed money? Charlie: That's a mean gross question because it assumes I might be a mean gross person. I'm not mean or gross. I have a headache from the wine and want to go to bed. Frank: Night night. See you tomorrow.


prompt:
Chapter: CHAPTER XXXVI. IN WHICH THE COSMOPOLITAN IS ACCOSTED BY A MYSTIC, WHEREUPON ENSUES PRETTY MUCH SUCH TALK AS MIGHT BE EXPECTED.

As, not without some haste, the boon companion withdrew, a stranger
advanced, and touching the cosmopolitan, said: "I think I heard you say
you would see that man again. Be warned; don't you do so."

He turned, surveying the speaker; a blue-eyed man, sandy-haired, and
Saxon-looking; perhaps five and forty; tall, and, but for a certain
angularity, well made; little touch of the drawing-room about him, but a
look of plain propriety of a Puritan sort, with a kind of farmer
dignity. His age seemed betokened more by his brow, placidly thoughtful,
than by his general aspect, which had that look of youthfulness in
maturity, peculiar sometimes to habitual health of body, the original
gift of nature, or in part the effect or reward of steady temperance of
the passions, kept so, perhaps, by constitution as much as morality. A
neat, comely, almost ruddy cheek, coolly fresh, like a red
clover-blossom at coolish dawn--the color of warmth preserved by the
virtue of chill. Toning the whole man, was one-knows-not-what of
shrewdness and mythiness, strangely jumbled; in that way, he seemed a
kind of cross between a Yankee peddler and a Tartar priest, though it
seemed as if, at a pinch, the first would not in all probability play
second fiddle to the last.

"Sir," said the cosmopolitan, rising and bowing with slow dignity, "if I
cannot with unmixed satisfaction hail a hint pointed at one who has just
been clinking the social glass with me, on the other hand, I am not
disposed to underrate the motive which, in the present case, could alone
have prompted such an intimation. My friend, whose seat is still warm,
has retired for the night, leaving more or less in his bottle here.
Pray, sit down in his seat, and partake with me; and then, if you choose
to hint aught further unfavorable to the man, the genial warmth of whose
person in part passes into yours, and whose genial hospitality meanders
through you--be it so."

"Quite beautiful conceits," said the stranger, now scholastically and
artistically eying the picturesque speaker, as if he were a statue in
the Pitti Palace; "very beautiful:" then with the gravest interest,
"yours, sir, if I mistake not, must be a beautiful soul--one full of all
love and truth; for where beauty is, there must those be."

"A pleasing belief," rejoined the cosmopolitan, beginning with an even
air, "and to confess, long ago it pleased me. Yes, with you and
Schiller, I am pleased to believe that beauty is at bottom incompatible
with ill, and therefore am so eccentric as to have confidence in the
latent benignity of that beautiful creature, the rattle-snake, whose
lithe neck and burnished maze of tawny gold, as he sleekly curls aloft
in the sun, who on the prairie can behold without wonder?"

As he breathed these words, he seemed so to enter into their spirit--as
some earnest descriptive speakers will--as unconsciously to wreathe his
form and sidelong crest his head, till he all but seemed the creature
described. Meantime, the stranger regarded him with little surprise,
apparently, though with much contemplativeness of a mystical sort, and
presently said:

"When charmed by the beauty of that viper, did it never occur to you to
change personalities with him? to feel what it was to be a snake? to
glide unsuspected in grass? to sting, to kill at a touch; your whole
beautiful body one iridescent scabbard of death? In short, did the wish
never occur to you to feel yourself exempt from knowledge, and
conscience, and revel for a while in the carefree, joyous life of a
perfectly instinctive, unscrupulous, and irresponsible creature?"

"Such a wish," replied the other, not perceptibly disturbed, "I must
confess, never consciously was mine. Such a wish, indeed, could hardly
occur to ordinary imaginations, and mine I cannot think much above the
average."

"But now that the idea is suggested," said the stranger, with infantile
intellectuality, "does it not raise the desire?"

"Hardly. For though I do not think I have any uncharitable prejudice
against the rattle-snake, still, I should not like to be one. If I were
a rattle-snake now, there would be no such thing as being genial with
men--men would be afraid of me, and then I should be a very lonesome and
miserable rattle-snake."

"True, men would be afraid of you. And why? Because of your rattle, your
hollow rattle--a sound, as I have been told, like the shaking together
of small, dry skulls in a tune of the Waltz of Death. And here we have
another beautiful truth. When any creature is by its make inimical to
other creatures, nature in effect labels that creature, much as an
apothecary does a poison. So that whoever is destroyed by a
rattle-snake, or other harmful agent, it is his own fault. He should
have respected the label. Hence that significant passage in Scripture,
'Who will pity the charmer that is bitten with a serpent?'"

"_I_ would pity him," said the cosmopolitan, a little bluntly, perhaps.

"But don't you think," rejoined the other, still maintaining his
passionless air, "don't you think, that for a man to pity where nature
is pitiless, is a little presuming?"

"Let casuists decide the casuistry, but the compassion the heart decides
for itself. But, sir," deepening in seriousness, "as I now for the first
realize, you but a moment since introduced the word irresponsible in a
way I am not used to. Now, sir, though, out of a tolerant spirit, as I
hope, I try my best never to be frightened at any speculation, so long
as it is pursued in honesty, yet, for once, I must acknowledge that you
do really, in the point cited, cause me uneasiness; because a proper
view of the universe, that view which is suited to breed a proper
confidence, teaches, if I err not, that since all things are justly
presided over, not very many living agents but must be some way
accountable."

"Is a rattle-snake accountable?" asked the stranger with such a
preternaturally cold, gemmy glance out of his pellucid blue eye, that he
seemed more a metaphysical merman than a feeling man; "is a rattle-snake
accountable?"

"If I will not affirm that it is," returned the other, with the caution
of no inexperienced thinker, "neither will I deny it. But if we suppose
it so, I need not say that such accountability is neither to you, nor
me, nor the Court of Common Pleas, but to something superior."

He was proceeding, when the stranger would have interrupted him; but as
reading his argument in his eye, the cosmopolitan, without waiting for
it to be put into words, at once spoke to it: "You object to my
supposition, for but such it is, that the rattle-snake's accountability
is not by nature manifest; but might not much the same thing be urged
against man's? A _reductio ad absurdum_, proving the objection vain. But
if now," he continued, "you consider what capacity for mischief there is
in a rattle-snake (observe, I do not charge it with being mischievous, I
but say it has the capacity), could you well avoid admitting that that
would be no symmetrical view of the universe which should maintain that,
while to man it is forbidden to kill, without judicial cause, his
fellow, yet the rattle-snake has an implied permit of unaccountability
to murder any creature it takes capricious umbrage at--man
included?--But," with a wearied air, "this is no genial talk; at least
it is not so to me. Zeal at unawares embarked me in it. I regret it.
Pray, sit down, and take some of this wine."

"Your suggestions are new to me," said the other, with a kind of
condescending appreciativeness, as of one who, out of devotion to
knowledge, disdains not to appropriate the least crumb of it, even from
a pauper's board; "and, as I am a very Athenian in hailing a new
thought, I cannot consent to let it drop so abruptly. Now, the
rattle-snake----"

"Nothing more about rattle-snakes, I beseech," in distress; "I must
positively decline to reenter upon that subject. Sit down, sir, I beg,
and take some of this wine."

"To invite me to sit down with you is hospitable," collectedly
acquiescing now in the change of topics; "and hospitality being fabled
to be of oriental origin, and forming, as it does, the subject of a
pleasing Arabian romance, as well as being a very romantic thing in
itself--hence I always hear the expressions of hospitality with
pleasure. But, as for the wine, my regard for that beverage is so
extreme, and I am so fearful of letting it sate me, that I keep my love
for it in the lasting condition of an untried abstraction. Briefly, I
quaff immense draughts of wine from the page of Hafiz, but wine from a
cup I seldom as much as sip."

The cosmopolitan turned a mild glance upon the speaker, who, now
occupying the chair opposite him, sat there purely and coldly radiant as
a prism. It seemed as if one could almost hear him vitreously chime and
ring. That moment a waiter passed, whom, arresting with a sign, the
cosmopolitan bid go bring a goblet of ice-water. "Ice it well, waiter,"
said he; "and now," turning to the stranger, "will you, if you please,
give me your reason for the warning words you first addressed to me?"

"I hope they were not such warnings as most warnings are," said the
stranger; "warnings which do not forewarn, but in mockery come after the
fact. And yet something in you bids me think now, that whatever latent
design your impostor friend might have had upon you, it as yet remains
unaccomplished. You read his label."

"And what did it say? 'This is a genial soul,' So you see you must
either give up your doctrine of labels, or else your prejudice against
my friend. But tell me," with renewed earnestness, "what do you take him
for? What is he?"

"What are you? What am I? Nobody knows who anybody is. The data which
life furnishes, towards forming a true estimate of any being, are as
insufficient to that end as in geometry one side given would be to
determine the triangle."

"But is not this doctrine of triangles someway inconsistent with your
doctrine of labels?"

"Yes; but what of that? I seldom care to be consistent. In a
philosophical view, consistency is a certain level at all times,
maintained in all the thoughts of one's mind. But, since nature is
nearly all hill and dale, how can one keep naturally advancing in
knowledge without submitting to the natural inequalities in the
progress? Advance into knowledge is just like advance upon the grand
Erie canal, where, from the character of the country, change of level is
inevitable; you are locked up and locked down with perpetual
inconsistencies, and yet all the time you get on; while the dullest part
of the whole route is what the boatmen call the 'long level'--a
consistently-flat surface of sixty miles through stagnant swamps."

"In one particular," rejoined the cosmopolitan, "your simile is,
perhaps, unfortunate. For, after all these weary lockings-up and
lockings-down, upon how much of a higher plain do you finally stand?
Enough to make it an object? Having from youth been taught reverence for
knowledge, you must pardon me if, on but this one account, I reject your
analogy. But really you someway bewitch me with your tempting discourse,
so that I keep straying from my point unawares. You tell me you cannot
certainly know who or what my friend is; pray, what do you conjecture
him to be?"

"I conjecture him to be what, among the ancient Egyptians, was called a
----" using some unknown word.

"A ----! And what is that?"

"A ---- is what Proclus, in a little note to his third book on the
theology of Plato, defines as ---- ----" coming out with a sentence of
Greek.

Holding up his glass, and steadily looking through its transparency, the
cosmopolitan rejoined: "That, in so defining the thing, Proclus set it
to modern understandings in the most crystal light it was susceptible
of, I will not rashly deny; still, if you could put the definition in
words suited to perceptions like mine, I should take it for a favor.

"A favor!" slightly lifting his cool eyebrows; "a bridal favor I
understand, a knot of white ribands, a very beautiful type of the purity
of true marriage; but of other favors I am yet to learn; and still, in a
vague way, the word, as you employ it, strikes me as unpleasingly
significant in general of some poor, unheroic submission to being done
good to."

Here the goblet of iced-water was brought, and, in compliance with a
sign from the cosmopolitan, was placed before the stranger, who, not
before expressing acknowledgments, took a draught, apparently
refreshing--its very coldness, as with some is the case, proving not
entirely uncongenial.

At last, setting down the goblet, and gently wiping from his lips the
beads of water freshly clinging there as to the valve of a coral-shell
upon a reef, he turned upon the cosmopolitan, and, in a manner the most
cool, self-possessed, and matter-of-fact possible, said: "I hold to the
metempsychosis; and whoever I may be now, I feel that I was once the
stoic Arrian, and have inklings of having been equally puzzled by a word
in the current language of that former time, very probably answering to
your word _favor_."

"Would you favor me by explaining?" said the cosmopolitan, blandly.

"Sir," responded the stranger, with a very slight degree of severity, "I
like lucidity, of all things, and am afraid I shall hardly be able to
converse satisfactorily with you, unless you bear it in mind."

The cosmopolitan ruminatingly eyed him awhile, then said: "The best way,
as I have heard, to get out of a labyrinth, is to retrace one's steps. I
will accordingly retrace mine, and beg you will accompany me. In short,
once again to return to the point: for what reason did you warn me
against my friend?"

"Briefly, then, and clearly, because, as before said, I conjecture him
to be what, among the ancient Egyptians----"

"Pray, now," earnestly deprecated the cosmopolitan, "pray, now, why
disturb the repose of those ancient Egyptians? What to us are their
words or their thoughts? Are we pauper Arabs, without a house of our
own, that, with the mummies, we must turn squatters among the dust of
the Catacombs?"

"Pharaoh's poorest brick-maker lies proudlier in his rags than the
Emperor of all the Russias in his hollands," oracularly said the
stranger; "for death, though in a worm, is majestic; while life, though
in a king, is contemptible. So talk not against mummies. It is a part of
my mission to teach mankind a due reverence for mummies."

Fortunately, to arrest these incoherencies, or rather, to vary them, a
haggard, inspired-looking man now approached--a crazy beggar, asking
alms under the form of peddling a rhapsodical tract, composed by
himself, and setting forth his claims to some rhapsodical apostleship.
Though ragged and dirty, there was about him no touch of vulgarity; for,
by nature, his manner was not unrefined, his frame slender, and appeared
the more so from the broad, untanned frontlet of his brow, tangled over
with a disheveled mass of raven curls, throwing a still deeper tinge
upon a complexion like that of a shriveled berry. Nothing could exceed
his look of picturesque Italian ruin and dethronement, heightened by
what seemed just one glimmering peep of reason, insufficient to do him
any lasting good, but enough, perhaps, to suggest a torment of latent
doubts at times, whether his addled dream of glory were true.

Accepting the tract offered him, the cosmopolitan glanced over it, and,
seeming to see just what it was, closed it, put it in his pocket, eyed
the man a moment, then, leaning over and presenting him with a shilling,
said to him, in tones kind and considerate: "I am sorry, my friend, that
I happen to be engaged just now; but, having purchased your work, I
promise myself much satisfaction in its perusal at my earliest leisure."

In his tattered, single-breasted frock-coat, buttoned meagerly up to his
chin, the shutter-brain made him a bow, which, for courtesy, would not
have misbecome a viscount, then turned with silent appeal to the
stranger. But the stranger sat more like a cold prism than ever, while
an expression of keen Yankee cuteness, now replacing his former mystical
one, lent added icicles to his aspect. His whole air said: "Nothing
from me." The repulsed petitioner threw a look full of resentful pride
and cracked disdain upon him, and went his way.

"Come, now," said the cosmopolitan, a little reproachfully, "you ought
to have sympathized with that man; tell me, did you feel no
fellow-feeling? Look at his tract here, quite in the transcendental
vein."

"Excuse me," said the stranger, declining the tract, "I never patronize
scoundrels."

"Scoundrels?"

"I detected in him, sir, a damning peep of sense--damning, I say; for
sense in a seeming madman is scoundrelism. I take him for a cunning
vagabond, who picks up a vagabond living by adroitly playing the madman.
Did you not remark how he flinched under my eye?'

"Really?" drawing a long, astonished breath, "I could hardly have
divined in you a temper so subtlely distrustful. Flinched? to be sure he
did, poor fellow; you received him with so lame a welcome. As for his
adroitly playing the madman, invidious critics might object the same to
some one or two strolling magi of these days. But that is a matter I
know nothing about. But, once more, and for the last time, to return to
the point: why sir, did you warn me against my friend? I shall rejoice,
if, as I think it will prove, your want of confidence in my friend rests
upon a basis equally slender with your distrust of the lunatic. Come,
why did you warn me? Put it, I beseech, in few words, and those
English."

"I warned you against him because he is suspected for what on these
boats is known--so they tell me--as a Mississippi operator."

"An operator, ah? he operates, does he? My friend, then, is something
like what the Indians call a Great Medicine, is he? He operates, he
purges, he drains off the repletions."

"I perceive, sir," said the stranger, constitutionally obtuse to the
pleasant drollery, "that your notion, of what is called a Great
Medicine, needs correction. The Great Medicine among the Indians is less
a bolus than a man in grave esteem for his politic sagacity."

"And is not my friend politic? Is not my friend sagacious? By your own
definition, is not my friend a Great Medicine?"

"No, he is an operator, a Mississippi operator; an equivocal character.
That he is such, I little doubt, having had him pointed out to me as
such by one desirous of initiating me into any little novelty of this
western region, where I never before traveled. And, sir, if I am not
mistaken, you also are a stranger here (but, indeed, where in this
strange universe is not one a stranger?) and that is a reason why I felt
moved to warn you against a companion who could not be otherwise than
perilous to one of a free and trustful disposition. But I repeat the
hope, that, thus far at least, he has not succeeded with you, and trust
that, for the future, he will not."

"Thank you for your concern; but hardly can I equally thank you for so
steadily maintaining the hypothesis of my friend's objectionableness.
True, I but made his acquaintance for the first to-day, and know little
of his antecedents; but that would seem no just reason why a nature like
his should not of itself inspire confidence. And since your own
knowledge of the gentleman is not, by your account, so exact as it might
be, you will pardon me if I decline to welcome any further suggestions
unflattering to him. Indeed, sir," with friendly decision, "let us
change the subject."

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

completion: After Charlie heads out, a man who we'll just call the Puritan for now sidles up to Frank and goes, I don't trust that guy. Frank isn't into the trash-talking, but he invites the Puritan to finish up the wine with him. The Puritan accepts and looks Frank over. He tells Frank he is beautiful and must also have a beautiful soul. Frank riffs on the idea that outward and inner beauty match and argues that the rattlesnake must have some good in it because it's so pretty. Two creepy descriptions are offered up by our narrator: 1) Frank seems to embody beautiful snakeness here; and 2) the Puritan asks him if he ever wonders what it be like to be a snake. You know, free and allowed to kill whatever. Yikes. Frank: Nah. The Puritan: Bet you kind of want to now, though, huh? Frank: Nah. I like people, and no offense to the snake, but if I were one, then people wouldn't want to hang out with me. Sad. The dudes talk about the rattler some more. The Puritan makes a victim-blame-y comment about how people who get bitten by rattlesnakes deserve it because they should know better, what with the rattling warning and all. Frank doesn't agree. The dudes sit down to drink, and Frank asks why the Puritan said he doesn't trust Charlie. It takes the Puritan fo-re-ver to get to the point because his answers are all semi-riddling riffs on this: Can anyone really trust anyone? Who is who? What is the what? At one point, the Puritan gives Frank a reason. Charlie, according to the Puritan, is what the Egyptians call "--." Yeah, that's not a typo. Melville really does just give us a blank line. It's kind of like a choose-your-own-adventure moment. Since the Puritan doesn't drink wine, ice water is brought out. Frank still tries to get a straight answer from the Puritan when a very poor man with some sort of mental illness walks by. He's offering to sing people songs that he's written. Frank buys one of the pamphlets the poor man's got with the lyrics, but tells the poor man he'll read it later and that he doesn't need to sing for them. The Puritan gives the poor man a death-glare. This scares the poor man away. Frank asks the Puritan what his problem is. The Puritan thinks the poor man is a fake with just enough sense to pretend to be mentally ill. For proof, the Puritan relies on the fact that he could scare the poor man off. Frank asks about the Puritan's distrust of Charlie again and demands there be no more mad libs. He just wants a reason in plain English. The Puritan: Charlie's a Mississippi operator. The guys have different views of what this term means, but the Puritan ultimately just reiterates that Charlie is untrustworthy. Frank: Let's just change the subject.


prompt:
Chapter: CHAPTER XXXVII THE MYSTICAL MASTER INTRODUCES THE PRACTICAL DISCIPLE.

"Both, the subject and the interlocutor," replied the stranger rising,
and waiting the return towards him of a promenader, that moment turning
at the further end of his walk.

"Egbert!" said he, calling.

Egbert, a well-dressed, commercial-looking gentleman of about thirty,
responded in a way strikingly deferential, and in a moment stood near,
in the attitude less of an equal companion apparently than a
confidential follower.

"This," said the stranger, taking Egbert by the hand and leading him to
the cosmopolitan, "this is Egbert, a disciple. I wish you to know
Egbert. Egbert was the first among mankind to reduce to practice the
principles of Mark Winsome--principles previously accounted as less
adapted to life than the closet. Egbert," turning to the disciple, who,
with seeming modesty, a little shrank under these compliments, "Egbert,
this," with a salute towards the cosmopolitan, "is, like all of us, a
stranger. I wish you, Egbert, to know this brother stranger; be
communicative with him. Particularly if, by anything hitherto dropped,
his curiosity has been roused as to the precise nature of my philosophy,
I trust you will not leave such curiosity ungratified. You, Egbert, by
simply setting forth your practice, can do more to enlighten one as to
my theory, than I myself can by mere speech. Indeed, it is by you that I
myself best understand myself. For to every philosophy are certain rear
parts, very important parts, and these, like the rear of one's head, are
best seen by reflection. Now, as in a glass, you, Egbert, in your life,
reflect to me the more important part of my system. He, who approves
you, approves the philosophy of Mark Winsome."

Though portions of this harangue may, perhaps, in the phraseology seem
self-complaisant, yet no trace of self-complacency was perceptible in
the speaker's manner, which throughout was plain, unassuming, dignified,
and manly; the teacher and prophet seemed to lurk more in the idea, so
to speak, than in the mere bearing of him who was the vehicle of it.

"Sir," said the cosmopolitan, who seemed not a little interested in this
new aspect of matters, "you speak of a certain philosophy, and a more or
less occult one it may be, and hint of its bearing upon practical life;
pray, tell me, if the study of this philosophy tends to the same
formation of character with the experiences of the world?"

"It does; and that is the test of its truth; for any philosophy that,
being in operation contradictory to the ways of the world, tends to
produce a character at odds with it, such a philosophy must necessarily
be but a cheat and a dream."

"You a little surprise me," answered the cosmopolitan; "for, from an
occasional profundity in you, and also from your allusions to a profound
work on the theology of Plato, it would seem but natural to surmise
that, if you are the originator of any philosophy, it must needs so
partake of the abstruse, as to exalt it above the comparatively vile
uses of life."

"No uncommon mistake with regard to me," rejoined the other. Then meekly
standing like a Raphael: "If still in golden accents old Memnon murmurs
his riddle, none the less does the balance-sheet of every man's ledger
unriddle the profit or loss of life. Sir," with calm energy, "man came
into this world, not to sit down and muse, not to befog himself with
vain subtleties, but to gird up his loins and to work. Mystery is in the
morning, and mystery in the night, and the beauty of mystery is
everywhere; but still the plain truth remains, that mouth and purse must
be filled. If, hitherto, you have supposed me a visionary, be
undeceived. I am no one-ideaed one, either; no more than the seers
before me. Was not Seneca a usurer? Bacon a courtier? and Swedenborg,
though with one eye on the invisible, did he not keep the other on the
main chance? Along with whatever else it may be given me to be, I am a
man of serviceable knowledge, and a man of the world. Know me for such.
And as for my disciple here," turning towards him, "if you look to find
any soft Utopianisms and last year's sunsets in him, I smile to think
how he will set you right. The doctrines I have taught him will, I
trust, lead him neither to the mad-house nor the poor-house, as so many
other doctrines have served credulous sticklers. Furthermore," glancing
upon him paternally, "Egbert is both my disciple and my poet. For poetry
is not a thing of ink and rhyme, but of thought and act, and, in the
latter way, is by any one to be found anywhere, when in useful action
sought. In a word, my disciple here is a thriving young merchant, a
practical poet in the West India trade. There," presenting Egbert's hand
to the cosmopolitan, "I join you, and leave you." With which words, and
without bowing, the master withdrew.

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

completion: The Puritan swaps subjects and taps in a new conversation partner. The Puritan calls over Egbert, a thirty-something businessman who doesn't seem like the type to be travelling with the Puritan. The Puritan, who we now learn is named Mark Winsome, is heading out, but Egbert is his disciple. Oh, yeah--turns out Winsome has developed a philosophy. He's leaving Egbert behind to tell Frank about it. Frank is surprised, because Winsome seems pie-in-the-sky but is talking like his philosophy has practical applications. Which is it? Winsome: My philosophy is super practical. Egbert will tell you everything.


prompt:
Chapter: CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE DISCIPLE UNBENDS, AND CONSENTS TO ACT A SOCIAL PART.

In the master's presence the disciple had stood as one not ignorant of
his place; modesty was in his expression, with a sort of reverential
depression. But the presence of the superior withdrawn, he seemed
lithely to shoot up erect from beneath it, like one of those wire men
from a toy snuff-box.

He was, as before said, a young man of about thirty. His countenance of
that neuter sort, which, in repose, is neither prepossessing nor
disagreeable; so that it seemed quite uncertain how he would turn out.
His dress was neat, with just enough of the mode to save it from the
reproach of originality; in which general respect, though with a
readjustment of details, his costume seemed modeled upon his master's.
But, upon the whole, he was, to all appearances, the last person in the
world that one would take for the disciple of any transcendental
philosophy; though, indeed, something about his sharp nose and shaved
chin seemed to hint that if mysticism, as a lesson, ever came in his
way, he might, with the characteristic knack of a true New-Englander,
turn even so profitless a thing to some profitable account.

"Well" said he, now familiarly seating himself in the vacated chair,
"what do you think of Mark? Sublime fellow, ain't he?"

"That each member of the human guild is worthy respect my friend,"
rejoined the cosmopolitan, "is a fact which no admirer of that guild
will question; but that, in view of higher natures, the word sublime, so
frequently applied to them, can, without confusion, be also applied to
man, is a point which man will decide for himself; though, indeed, if he
decide it in the affirmative, it is not for me to object. But I am
curious to know more of that philosophy of which, at present, I have but
inklings. You, its first disciple among men, it seems, are peculiarly
qualified to expound it. Have you any objections to begin now?"

"None at all," squaring himself to the table. "Where shall I begin? At
first principles?"

"You remember that it was in a practical way that you were represented
as being fitted for the clear exposition. Now, what you call first
principles, I have, in some things, found to be more or less vague.
Permit me, then, in a plain way, to suppose some common case in real
life, and that done, I would like you to tell me how you, the practical
disciple of the philosophy I wish to know about, would, in that case,
conduct."

"A business-like view. Propose the case."

"Not only the case, but the persons. The case is this: There are two
friends, friends from childhood, bosom-friends; one of whom, for the
first time, being in need, for the first time seeks a loan from the
other, who, so far as fortune goes, is more than competent to grant it.
And the persons are to be you and I: you, the friend from whom the loan
is sought--I, the friend who seeks it; you, the disciple of the
philosophy in question--I, a common man, with no more philosophy than to
know that when I am comfortably warm I don't feel cold, and when I have
the ague I shake. Mind, now, you must work up your imagination, and, as
much as possible, talk and behave just as if the case supposed were a
fact. For brevity, you shall call me Frank, and I will call you Charlie.
Are you agreed?"

"Perfectly. You begin."

The cosmopolitan paused a moment, then, assuming a serious and care-worn
air, suitable to the part to be enacted, addressed his hypothesized
friend.

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

completion: Once Winsome is gone, Egbert looks less like a lost puppy and more like he's got his life together. Egbert confidently sits down at the table, praises Winsome, and asks if Frank thinks he's great, too. Frank does a little fancy footwork in getting away with not saying that Winsome is the best thing since sliced bread. He still really wants to know about the dude's philosophy, though. Egbert is eager to begin, but Frank stops him: I don't want a lecture, I want a lesson. The guys agree to role-play a case of Frank's invention. Frank will be Frank, and Egbert will play a guy named Charlie. Stop us if you've heard this one before, but Frank and Charlie in this scenario are longtime friends since childhood, and Frank needs to borrow money. Yeah.


prompt:
Chapter: CHAPTER XXXIX. THE HYPOTHETICAL FRIENDS.

"Charlie, I am going to put confidence in you."

"You always have, and with reason. What is it Frank?"

"Charlie, I am in want--urgent want of money."

"That's not well."

"But it _will_ be well, Charlie, if you loan me a hundred dollars. I
would not ask this of you, only my need is sore, and you and I have so
long shared hearts and minds together, however unequally on my side,
that nothing remains to prove our friendship than, with the same
inequality on my side, to share purses. You will do me the favor won't
you?"

"Favor? What do you mean by asking me to do you a favor?"

"Why, Charlie, you never used to talk so."

"Because, Frank, you on your side, never used to talk so."

"But won't you loan me the money?"

"No, Frank."

"Why?"

"Because my rule forbids. I give away money, but never loan it; and of
course the man who calls himself my friend is above receiving alms. The
negotiation of a loan is a business transaction. And I will transact no
business with a friend. What a friend is, he is socially and
intellectually; and I rate social and intellectual friendship too high
to degrade it on either side into a pecuniary make-shift. To be sure
there are, and I have, what is called business friends; that is,
commercial acquaintances, very convenient persons. But I draw a red-ink
line between them and my friends in the true sense--my friends social
and intellectual. In brief, a true friend has nothing to do with loans;
he should have a soul above loans. Loans are such unfriendly
accommodations as are to be had from the soulless corporation of a bank,
by giving the regular security and paying the regular discount."

"An _unfriendly_ accommodation? Do those words go together handsomely?"

"Like the poor farmer's team, of an old man and a cow--not handsomely,
but to the purpose. Look, Frank, a loan of money on interest is a sale
of money on credit. To sell a thing on credit may be an accommodation,
but where is the friendliness? Few men in their senses, except
operators, borrow money on interest, except upon a necessity akin to
starvation. Well, now, where is the friendliness of my letting a
starving man have, say, the money's worth of a barrel of flour upon the
condition that, on a given day, he shall let me have the money's worth
of a barrel and a half of flour; especially if I add this further
proviso, that if he fail so to do, I shall then, to secure to myself
the money's worth of my barrel and his half barrel, put his heart up at
public auction, and, as it is cruel to part families, throw in his
wife's and children's?"

"I understand," with a pathetic shudder; "but even did it come to that,
such a step on the creditor's part, let us, for the honor of human
nature, hope, were less the intention than the contingency."

"But, Frank, a contingency not unprovided for in the taking beforehand
of due securities."

"Still, Charlie, was not the loan in the first place a friend's act?"

"And the auction in the last place an enemy's act. Don't you see? The
enmity lies couched in the friendship, just as the ruin in the relief."

"I must be very stupid to-day, Charlie, but really, I can't understand
this. Excuse me, my dear friend, but it strikes me that in going into
the philosophy of the subject, you go somewhat out of your depth."

"So said the incautious wader out to the ocean; but the ocean replied:
'It is just the other way, my wet friend,' and drowned him."

"That, Charlie, is a fable about as unjust to the ocean, as some of
AEsop's are to the animals. The ocean is a magnanimous element, and would
scorn to assassinate a poor fellow, let alone taunting him in the act.
But I don't understand what you say about enmity couched in friendship,
and ruin in relief."

"I will illustrate, Frank, The needy man is a train slipped off the
rail. He who loans him money on interest is the one who, by way of
accommodation, helps get the train back where it belongs; but then, by
way of making all square, and a little more, telegraphs to an agent,
thirty miles a-head by a precipice, to throw just there, on his account,
a beam across the track. Your needy man's principle-and-interest friend
is, I say again, a friend with an enmity in reserve. No, no, my dear
friend, no interest for me. I scorn interest."

"Well, Charlie, none need you charge. Loan me without interest."

"That would be alms again."

"Alms, if the sum borrowed is returned?"

"Yes: an alms, not of the principle, but the interest."

"Well, I am in sore need, so I will not decline the alms. Seeing that it
is you, Charlie, gratefully will I accept the alms of the interest. No
humiliation between friends."

"Now, how in the refined view of friendship can you suffer yourself to
talk so, my dear Frank. It pains me. For though I am not of the sour
mind of Solomon, that, in the hour of need, a stranger is better than a
brother; yet, I entirely agree with my sublime master, who, in his Essay
on Friendship, says so nobly, that if he want a terrestrial convenience,
not to his friend celestial (or friend social and intellectual) would he
go; no: for his terrestrial convenience, to his friend terrestrial (or
humbler business-friend) he goes. Very lucidly he adds the reason:
Because, for the superior nature, which on no account can ever descend
to do good, to be annoyed with requests to do it, when the inferior
one, which by no instruction can ever rise above that capacity, stands
always inclined to it--this is unsuitable."

"Then I will not consider you as my friend celestial, but as the other."

"It racks me to come to that; but, to oblige you, I'll do it. We are
business friends; business is business. You want to negotiate a loan.
Very good. On what paper? Will you pay three per cent a month? Where is
your security?"

"Surely, you will not exact those formalities from your old
schoolmate--him with whom you have so often sauntered down the groves of
Academe, discoursing of the beauty of virtue, and the grace that is in
kindliness--and all for so paltry a sum. Security? Our being
fellow-academics, and friends from childhood up, is security."

"Pardon me, my dear Frank, our being fellow-academics is the worst of
securities; while, our having been friends from childhood up is just no
security at all. You forget we are now business friends."

"And you, on your side, forget, Charlie, that as your business friend I
can give you no security; my need being so sore that I cannot get an
indorser."

"No indorser, then, no business loan."

"Since then, Charlie, neither as the one nor the other sort of friend
you have defined, can I prevail with you; how if, combining the two, I
sue as both?"

"Are you a centaur?"

"When all is said then, what good have I of your friendship, regarded in
what light you will?"

"The good which is in the philosophy of Mark Winsome, as reduced to
practice by a practical disciple."

"And why don't you add, much good may the philosophy of Mark Winsome do
me? Ah," turning invokingly, "what is friendship, if it be not the
helping hand and the feeling heart, the good Samaritan pouring out at
need the purse as the vial!"

"Now, my dear Frank, don't be childish. Through tears never did man see
his way in the dark. I should hold you unworthy that sincere friendship
I bear you, could I think that friendship in the ideal is too lofty for
you to conceive. And let me tell you, my dear Frank, that you would
seriously shake the foundations of our love, if ever again you should
repeat the present scene. The philosophy, which is mine in the strongest
way, teaches plain-dealing. Let me, then, now, as at the most suitable
time, candidly disclose certain circumstances you seem in ignorance of.
Though our friendship began in boyhood, think not that, on my side at
least, it began injudiciously. Boys are little men, it is said. You, I
juvenilely picked out for my friend, for your favorable points at the
time; not the least of which were your good manners, handsome dress, and
your parents' rank and repute of wealth. In short, like any grown man,
boy though I was, I went into the market and chose me my mutton, not for
its leanness, but its fatness. In other words, there seemed in you, the
schoolboy who always had silver in his pocket, a reasonable probability
that you would never stand in lean need of fat succor; and if my early
impression has not been verified by the event, it is only because of
the caprice of fortune producing a fallibility of human expectations,
however discreet.'"

"Oh, that I should listen to this cold-blooded disclosure!"

"A little cold blood in your ardent veins, my dear Frank, wouldn't do
you any harm, let me tell you. Cold-blooded? You say that, because my
disclosure seems to involve a vile prudence on my side. But not so. My
reason for choosing you in part for the points I have mentioned, was
solely with a view of preserving inviolate the delicacy of the
connection. For--do but think of it--what more distressing to delicate
friendship, formed early, than your friend's eventually, in manhood,
dropping in of a rainy night for his little loan of five dollars or so?
Can delicate friendship stand that? And, on the other side, would
delicate friendship, so long as it retained its delicacy, do that? Would
you not instinctively say of your dripping friend in the entry, 'I have
been deceived, fraudulently deceived, in this man; he is no true friend
that, in platonic love to demand love-rites?'"

"And rites, doubly rights, they are, cruel Charlie!"

"Take it how you will, heed well how, by too importunately claiming
those rights, as you call them, you shake those foundations I hinted of.
For though, as it turns out, I, in my early friendship, built me a fair
house on a poor site; yet such pains and cost have I lavished on that
house, that, after all, it is dear to me. No, I would not lose the sweet
boon of your friendship, Frank. But beware."

"And of what? Of being in need? Oh, Charlie! you talk not to a god, a
being who in himself holds his own estate, but to a man who, being a
man, is the sport of fate's wind and wave, and who mounts towards heaven
or sinks towards hell, as the billows roll him in trough or on crest."

"Tut! Frank. Man is no such poor devil as that comes to--no poor
drifting sea-weed of the universe. Man has a soul; which, if he will,
puts him beyond fortune's finger and the future's spite. Don't whine
like fortune's whipped dog, Frank, or by the heart of a true friend, I
will cut ye."

"Cut me you have already, cruel Charlie, and to the quick. Call to mind
the days we went nutting, the times we walked in the woods, arms
wreathed about each other, showing trunks invined like the trees:--oh,
Charlie!"

"Pish! we were boys."

"Then lucky the fate of the first-born of Egypt, cold in the grave ere
maturity struck them with a sharper frost.--Charlie?"

"Fie! you're a girl."

"Help, help, Charlie, I want help!"

"Help? to say nothing of the friend, there is something wrong about the
man who wants help. There is somewhere a defect, a want, in brief, a
need, a crying need, somewhere about that man."

"So there is, Charlie.--Help, Help!"

"How foolish a cry, when to implore help, is itself the proof of
undesert of it."

"Oh, this, all along, is not you, Charlie, but some ventriloquist who
usurps your larynx. It is Mark Winsome that speaks, not Charlie."

"If so, thank heaven, the voice of Mark Winsome is not alien but
congenial to my larynx. If the philosophy of that illustrious teacher
find little response among mankind at large, it is less that they do not
possess teachable tempers, than because they are so unfortunate as not
to have natures predisposed to accord with him.

"Welcome, that compliment to humanity," exclaimed Frank with energy,
"the truer because unintended. And long in this respect may humanity
remain what you affirm it. And long it will; since humanity, inwardly
feeling how subject it is to straits, and hence how precious is help,
will, for selfishness' sake, if no other, long postpone ratifying a
philosophy that banishes help from the world. But Charlie, Charlie!
speak as you used to; tell me you will help me. Were the case reversed,
not less freely would I loan you the money than you would ask me to loan
it.

"_I_ ask? _I_ ask a loan? Frank, by this hand, under no circumstances
would I accept a loan, though without asking pressed on me. The
experience of China Aster might warn me."

"And what was that?"

"Not very unlike the experience of the man that built himself a palace
of moon-beams, and when the moon set was surprised that his palace
vanished with it. I will tell you about China Aster. I wish I could do
so in my own words, but unhappily the original story-teller here has so
tyrannized over me, that it is quite impossible for me to repeat his
incidents without sliding into his style. I forewarn you of this, that
you may not think me so maudlin as, in some parts, the story would seem
to make its narrator. It is too bad that any intellect, especially in so
small a matter, should have such power to impose itself upon another,
against its best exerted will, too. However, it is satisfaction to know
that the main moral, to which all tends, I fully approve. But, to
begin."

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

completion: Frank: Can I put my confidence in you? Egbert : Totes. Frank: I can has $100 now? Egbert: No. If I gave you monies as a freebie that's like giving to the poor, which would make us not equals. If we couldn't be on the same footing, we wouldn't be heart-mind friends. Frank: I'll pay you back. Egbert: Nah. I don't loan to friends. If I loaned to you, we'd stop being friends and would be business associates instead. Frank: Let's do that. Egbert: Okay. I'm going to charge you crazy high interest and demand a lot of proof backing you up and saying you have enough money to pay me back. Frank: I can't prove that, but can't you trust me as your friend? I'm going to pay you back, but I came to you because I can't go to the banks. Egbert: Tough. Besides, I picked you as a friend way back when because it looked like you were rich. I'd never pick a poor friend , but you losing your fortune and asking me for money is a kind of fraud, because I picked a not-poor friend and you ended up poor. This really sucks for me. Frank: That's gross, 'Charlie.' What if you needed the money? I'd help you. Egbert: Ew. First off, I wouldn't ask. Secondly, I would accept if you offered. I know about China Aster. Frank: Um, what? Egbert: I'll tell you, but not in my own words--I'll repeat the story exactly as I heard it. It's not my style of storytelling, but this version is seared in my brain.


prompt:
Chapter: CHAPTER XL. IN WHICH THE STORY OF CHINA ASTER IS AT SECOND-HAND TOLD BY ONE WHO, WHILE NOT DISAPPROVING THE MORAL, DISCLAIMS THE SPIRIT OF THE STYLE.

"China Aster was a young candle-maker of Marietta, at the mouth of the
Muskingum--one whose trade would seem a kind of subordinate branch of
that parent craft and mystery of the hosts of heaven, to be the means,
effectively or otherwise, of shedding some light through the darkness of
a planet benighted. But he made little money by the business. Much ado
had poor China Aster and his family to live; he could, if he chose,
light up from his stores a whole street, but not so easily could he
light up with prosperity the hearts of his household.

"Now, China Aster, it so happened, had a friend, Orchis, a shoemaker;
one whose calling it is to defend the understandings of men from naked
contact with the substance of things: a very useful vocation, and which,
spite of all the wiseacres may prophesy, will hardly go out of fashion
so long as rocks are hard and flints will gall. All at once, by a
capital prize in a lottery, this useful shoemaker was raised from a
bench to a sofa. A small nabob was the shoemaker now, and the
understandings of men, let them shift for themselves. Not that Orchis
was, by prosperity, elated into heartlessness. Not at all. Because, in
his fine apparel, strolling one morning into the candlery, and gayly
switching about at the candle-boxes with his gold-headed cane--while
poor China Aster, with his greasy paper cap and leather apron, was
selling one candle for one penny to a poor orange-woman, who, with the
patronizing coolness of a liberal customer, required it to be carefully
rolled up and tied in a half sheet of paper--lively Orchis, the woman
being gone, discontinued his gay switchings and said: 'This is poor
business for you, friend China Aster; your capital is too small. You
must drop this vile tallow and hold up pure spermaceti to the world. I
tell you what it is, you shall have one thousand dollars to extend with.
In fact, you must make money, China Aster. I don't like to see your
little boy paddling about without shoes, as he does.'

"'Heaven bless your goodness, friend Orchis,' replied the candle-maker,
'but don't take it illy if I call to mind the word of my uncle, the
blacksmith, who, when a loan was offered him, declined it, saying: "To
ply my own hammer, light though it be, I think best, rather than piece
it out heavier by welding to it a bit off a neighbor's hammer, though
that may have some weight to spare; otherwise, were the borrowed bit
suddenly wanted again, it might not split off at the welding, but too
much to one side or the other."'

"'Nonsense, friend China Aster, don't be so honest; your boy is
barefoot. Besides, a rich man lose by a poor man? Or a friend be the
worse by a friend? China Aster, I am afraid that, in leaning over into
your vats here, this, morning, you have spilled out your wisdom. Hush! I
won't hear any more. Where's your desk? Oh, here.' With that, Orchis
dashed off a check on his bank, and off-handedly presenting it, said:
'There, friend China Aster, is your one thousand dollars; when you make
it ten thousand, as you soon enough will (for experience, the only true
knowledge, teaches me that, for every one, good luck is in store), then,
China Aster, why, then you can return me the money or not, just as you
please. But, in any event, give yourself no concern, for I shall never
demand payment.'

"Now, as kind heaven will so have it that to a hungry man bread is a
great temptation, and, therefore, he is not too harshly to be blamed,
if, when freely offered, he take it, even though it be uncertain whether
he shall ever be able to reciprocate; so, to a poor man, proffered money
is equally enticing, and the worst that can be said of him, if he accept
it, is just what can be said in the other case of the hungry man. In
short, the poor candle-maker's scrupulous morality succumbed to his
unscrupulous necessity, as is now and then apt to be the case. He took
the check, and was about carefully putting it away for the present, when
Orchis, switching about again with his gold-headed cane, said:
'By-the-way, China Aster, it don't mean anything, but suppose you make a
little memorandum of this; won't do any harm, you know.' So China Aster
gave Orchis his note for one thousand dollars on demand. Orchis took it,
and looked at it a moment, 'Pooh, I told you, friend China Aster, I
wasn't going ever to make any _demand_.' Then tearing up the note, and
switching away again at the candle-boxes, said, carelessly; 'Put it at
four years.' So China Aster gave Orchis his note for one thousand
dollars at four years. 'You see I'll never trouble you about this,' said
Orchis, slipping it in his pocket-book, 'give yourself no further
thought, friend China Aster, than how best to invest your money. And
don't forget my hint about spermaceti. Go into that, and I'll buy all my
light of you,' with which encouraging words, he, with wonted, rattling
kindness, took leave.

"China Aster remained standing just where Orchis had left him; when,
suddenly, two elderly friends, having nothing better to do, dropped in
for a chat. The chat over, China Aster, in greasy cap and apron, ran
after Orchis, and said: 'Friend Orchis, heaven will reward you for your
good intentions, but here is your check, and now give me my note.'

"'Your honesty is a bore, China Aster,' said Orchis, not without
displeasure. 'I won't take the check from you.'

"'Then you must take it from the pavement, Orchis,' said China Aster;
and, picking up a stone, he placed the check under it on the walk.

"'China Aster,' said Orchis, inquisitively eying him, after my leaving
the candlery just now, what asses dropped in there to advise with you,
that now you hurry after me, and act so like a fool? Shouldn't wonder if
it was those two old asses that the boys nickname Old Plain Talk and Old
Prudence.'

"'Yes, it was those two, Orchis, but don't call them names.'

"'A brace of spavined old croakers. Old Plain Talk had a shrew for a
wife, and that's made him shrewish; and Old Prudence, when a boy, broke
down in an apple-stall, and that discouraged him for life. No better
sport for a knowing spark like me than to hear Old Plain Talk wheeze out
his sour old saws, while Old Prudence stands by, leaning on his staff,
wagging his frosty old pow, and chiming in at every clause.'

"'How can you speak so, friend Orchis, of those who were my father's
friends?'"

"'Save me from my friends, if those old croakers were Old Honesty's
friends. I call your father so, for every one used to. Why did they let
him go in his old age on the town? Why, China Aster, I've often heard
from my mother, the chronicler, that those two old fellows, with Old
Conscience--as the boys called the crabbed old quaker, that's dead
now--they three used to go to the poor-house when your father was there,
and get round his bed, and talk to him for all the world as Eliphaz,
Bildad, and Zophar did to poor old pauper Job. Yes, Job's comforters
were Old Plain Talk, and Old Prudence, and Old Conscience, to your poor
old father. Friends? I should like to know who you call foes? With their
everlasting croaking and reproaching they tormented poor Old Honesty,
your father, to death.'

"At these words, recalling the sad end of his worthy parent, China Aster
could not restrain some tears. Upon which Orchis said: 'Why, China
Aster, you are the dolefulest creature. Why don't you, China Aster,
take a bright view of life? You will never get on in your business or
anything else, if you don't take the bright view of life. It's the
ruination of a man to take the dismal one.' Then, gayly poking at him
with his gold-headed cane, 'Why don't you, then? Why don't you be bright
and hopeful, like me? Why don't you have confidence, China Aster?

"I'm sure I don't know, friend Orchis,' soberly replied China Aster,
'but may be my not having drawn a lottery-prize, like you, may make some
difference.'

"Nonsense! before I knew anything about the prize I was gay as a lark,
just as gay as I am now. In fact, it has always been a principle with me
to hold to the bright view.'

"Upon this, China Aster looked a little hard at Orchis, because the
truth was, that until the lucky prize came to him, Orchis had gone under
the nickname of Doleful Dumps, he having been beforetimes of a
hypochondriac turn, so much so as to save up and put by a few dollars of
his scanty earnings against that rainy day he used to groan so much
about.

"I tell you what it is, now, friend China Aster,' said Orchis, pointing
down to the check under the stone, and then slapping his pocket, 'the
check shall lie there if you say so, but your note shan't keep it
company. In fact, China Aster, I am too sincerely your friend to take
advantage of a passing fit of the blues in you. You _shall_ reap the
benefit of my friendship.' With which, buttoning up his coat in a
jiffy, away he ran, leaving the check behind.

"At first, China Aster was going to tear it up, but thinking that this
ought not to be done except in the presence of the drawer of the check,
he mused a while, and picking it up, trudged back to the candlery, fully
resolved to call upon Orchis soon as his day's work was over, and
destroy the check before his eyes. But it so happened that when China
Aster called, Orchis was out, and, having waited for him a weary time in
vain, China Aster went home, still with the check, but still resolved
not to keep it another day. Bright and early next morning he would a
second time go after Orchis, and would, no doubt, make a sure thing of
it, by finding him in his bed; for since the lottery-prize came to him,
Orchis, besides becoming more cheery, had also grown a little lazy. But
as destiny would have it, that same night China Aster had a dream, in
which a being in the guise of a smiling angel, and holding a kind of
cornucopia in her hand, hovered over him, pouring down showers of small
gold dollars, thick as kernels of corn. 'I am Bright Future, friend
China Aster,' said the angel, 'and if you do what friend Orchis would
have you do, just see what will come of it.' With which Bright Future,
with another swing of her cornucopia, poured such another shower of
small gold dollars upon him, that it seemed to bank him up all round,
and he waded about in it like a maltster in malt.

"Now, dreams are wonderful things, as everybody knows--so wonderful,
indeed, that some people stop not short of ascribing them directly to
heaven; and China Aster, who was of a proper turn of mind in everything,
thought that in consideration of the dream, it would be but well to wait
a little, ere seeking Orchis again. During the day, China Aster's mind
dwelling continually upon the dream, he was so full of it, that when Old
Plain Talk dropped in to see him, just before dinnertime, as he often
did, out of the interest he took in Old Honesty's son, China Aster told
all about his vision, adding that he could not think that so radiant an
angel could deceive; and, indeed, talked at such a rate that one would
have thought he believed the angel some beautiful human philanthropist.
Something in this sort Old Plain Talk understood him, and, accordingly,
in his plain way, said: 'China Aster, you tell me that an angel appeared
to you in a dream. Now, what does that amount to but this, that you
dreamed an angel appeared to you? Go right away, China Aster, and return
the check, as I advised you before. If friend Prudence were here, he
would say just the same thing.' With which words Old Plain Talk went off
to find friend Prudence, but not succeeding, was returning to the
candlery himself, when, at distance mistaking him for a dun who had long
annoyed him, China Aster in a panic barred all his doors, and ran to the
back part of the candlery, where no knock could be heard.

"By this sad mistake, being left with no friend to argue the other side
of the question, China Aster was so worked upon at last, by musing over
his dream, that nothing would do but he must get the check cashed, and
lay out the money the very same day in buying a good lot of spermaceti
to make into candles, by which operation he counted upon turning a
better penny than he ever had before in his life; in fact, this he
believed would prove the foundation of that famous fortune which the
angel had promised him.

"Now, in using the money, China Aster was resolved punctually to pay the
interest every six months till the principal should be returned, howbeit
not a word about such a thing had been breathed by Orchis; though,
indeed, according to custom, as well as law, in such matters, interest
would legitimately accrue on the loan, nothing to the contrary having
been put in the bond. Whether Orchis at the time had this in mind or
not, there is no sure telling; but, to all appearance, he never so much
as cared to think about the matter, one way or other.

"Though the spermaceti venture rather disappointed China Aster's
sanguine expectations, yet he made out to pay the first six months'
interest, and though his next venture turned out still less
prosperously, yet by pinching his family in the matter of fresh meat,
and, what pained him still more, his boys' schooling, he contrived to
pay the second six months' interest, sincerely grieved that integrity,
as well as its opposite, though not in an equal degree, costs something,
sometimes.

"Meanwhile, Orchis had gone on a trip to Europe by advice of a
physician; it so happening that, since the lottery-prize came to him, it
had been discovered to Orchis that his health was not very firm, though
he had never complained of anything before but a slight ailing of the
spleen, scarce worth talking about at the time. So Orchis, being abroad,
could not help China Aster's paying his interest as he did, however much
he might have been opposed to it; for China Aster paid it to Orchis's
agent, who was of too business-like a turn to decline interest regularly
paid in on a loan.

"But overmuch to trouble the agent on that score was not again to be the
fate of China Aster; for, not being of that skeptical spirit which
refuses to trust customers, his third venture resulted, through bad
debts, in almost a total loss--a bad blow for the candle-maker. Neither
did Old Plain Talk, and Old Prudence neglect the opportunity to read him
an uncheerful enough lesson upon the consequences of his disregarding
their advice in the matter of having nothing to do with borrowed money.
'It's all just as I predicted,' said Old Plain Talk, blowing his old
nose with his old bandana. 'Yea, indeed is it,' chimed in Old Prudence,
rapping his staff on the floor, and then leaning upon it, looking with
solemn forebodings upon China Aster. Low-spirited enough felt the poor
candle-maker; till all at once who should come with a bright face to him
but his bright friend, the angel, in another dream. Again the cornucopia
poured out its treasure, and promised still more. Revived by the vision,
he resolved not to be down-hearted, but up and at it once more--contrary
to the advice of Old Plain Talk, backed as usual by his crony, which was
to the effect, that, under present circumstances, the best thing China
Aster could do, would be to wind up his business, settle, if he could,
all his liabilities, and then go to work as a journeyman, by which he
could earn good wages, and give up, from that time henceforth, all
thoughts of rising above being a paid subordinate to men more able than
himself, for China Aster's career thus far plainly proved him the
legitimate son of Old Honesty, who, as every one knew, had never shown
much business-talent, so little, in fact, that many said of him that he
had no business to be in business. And just this plain saying Plain Talk
now plainly applied to China Aster, and Old Prudence never disagreed
with him. But the angel in the dream did, and, maugre Plain Talk, put
quite other notions into the candle-maker.

"He considered what he should do towards reestablishing himself.
Doubtless, had Orchis been in the country, he would have aided him in
this strait. As it was, he applied to others; and as in the world, much
as some may hint to the contrary, an honest man in misfortune still can
find friends to stay by him and help him, even so it proved with China
Aster, who at last succeeded in borrowing from a rich old farmer the sum
of six hundred dollars, at the usual interest of money-lenders, upon the
security of a secret bond signed by China Aster's wife and himself, to
the effect that all such right and title to any property that should be
left her by a well-to-do childless uncle, an invalid tanner, such
property should, in the event of China Aster's failing to return the
borrowed sum on the given day, be the lawful possession of the
money-lender. True, it was just as much as China Aster could possibly do
to induce his wife, a careful woman, to sign this bond; because she had
always regarded her promised share in her uncle's estate as an anchor
well to windward of the hard times in which China Aster had always been
more or less involved, and from which, in her bosom, she never had seen
much chance of his freeing himself. Some notion may be had of China
Aster's standing in the heart and head of his wife, by a short sentence
commonly used in reply to such persons as happened to sound her on the
point. 'China Aster,' she would say, 'is a good husband, but a bad
business man!' Indeed, she was a connection on the maternal side of Old
Plain Talk's. But had not China Aster taken good care not to let Old
Plain Talk and Old Prudence hear of his dealings with the old farmer,
ten to one they would, in some way, have interfered with his success in
that quarter.

"It has been hinted that the honesty of China Aster was what mainly
induced the money-lender to befriend him in his misfortune, and this
must be apparent; for, had China Aster been a different man, the
money-lender might have dreaded lest, in the event of his failing to
meet his note, he might some way prove slippery--more especially as, in
the hour of distress, worked upon by remorse for so jeopardizing his
wife's money, his heart might prove a traitor to his bond, not to hint
that it was more than doubtful how such a secret security and claim, as
in the last resort would be the old farmer's, would stand in a court of
law. But though one inference from all this may be, that had China Aster
been something else than what he was, he would not have been trusted,
and, therefore, he would have been effectually shut out from running his
own and wife's head into the usurer's noose; yet those who, when
everything at last came out, maintained that, in this view and to this
extent, the honesty of the candle-maker was no advantage to him, in so
saying, such persons said what every good heart must deplore, and no
prudent tongue will admit.

"It may be mentioned, that the old farmer made China Aster take part of
his loan in three old dried-up cows and one lame horse, not improved by
the glanders. These were thrown in at a pretty high figure, the old
money-lender having a singular prejudice in regard to the high value of
any sort of stock raised on his farm. With a great deal of difficulty,
and at more loss, China Aster disposed of his cattle at public auction,
no private purchaser being found who could be prevailed upon to invest.
And now, raking and scraping in every way, and working early and late,
China Aster at last started afresh, nor without again largely and
confidently extending himself. However, he did not try his hand at the
spermaceti again, but, admonished by experience, returned to tallow.
But, having bought a good lot of it, by the time he got it into candles,
tallow fell so low, and candles with it, that his candles per pound
barely sold for what he had paid for the tallow. Meantime, a year's
unpaid interest had accrued on Orchis' loan, but China Aster gave
himself not so much concern about that as about the interest now due to
the old farmer. But he was glad that the principal there had yet some
time to run. However, the skinny old fellow gave him some trouble by
coming after him every day or two on a scraggy old white horse,
furnished with a musty old saddle, and goaded into his shambling old
paces with a withered old raw hide. All the neighbors said that surely
Death himself on the pale horse was after poor China Aster now. And
something so it proved; for, ere long, China Aster found himself
involved in troubles mortal enough.

At this juncture Orchis was heard of. Orchis, it seemed had returned
from his travels, and clandestinely married, and, in a kind of queer
way, was living in Pennsylvania among his wife's relations, who, among
other things, had induced him to join a church, or rather semi-religious
school, of Come-Outers; and what was still more, Orchis, without coming
to the spot himself, had sent word to his agent to dispose of some of
his property in Marietta, and remit him the proceeds. Within a year
after, China Aster received a letter from Orchis, commending him for his
punctuality in paying the first year's interest, and regretting the
necessity that he (Orchis) was now under of using all his dividends; so
he relied upon China Aster's paying the next six months' interest, and
of course with the back interest. Not more surprised than alarmed, China
Aster thought of taking steamboat to go and see Orchis, but he was saved
that expense by the unexpected arrival in Marietta of Orchis in person,
suddenly called there by that strange kind of capriciousness lately
characterizing him. No sooner did China Aster hear of his old friend's
arrival than he hurried to call upon him. He found him curiously rusty
in dress, sallow in cheek, and decidedly less gay and cordial in manner,
which the more surprised China Aster, because, in former days, he had
more than once heard Orchis, in his light rattling way, declare that all
he (Orchis) wanted to make him a perfectly happy, hilarious, and
benignant man, was a voyage to Europe and a wife, with a free
development of his inmost nature.

"Upon China Aster's stating his case, his trusted friend was silent for
a time; then, in an odd way, said that he would not crowd China Aster,
but still his (Orchis') necessities were urgent. Could not China Aster
mortgage the candlery? He was honest, and must have moneyed friends; and
could he not press his sales of candles? Could not the market be forced
a little in that particular? The profits on candles must be very great.
Seeing, now, that Orchis had the notion that the candle-making business
was a very profitable one, and knowing sorely enough what an error was
here, China Aster tried to undeceive him. But he could not drive the
truth into Orchis--Orchis being very obtuse here, and, at the same time,
strange to say, very melancholy. Finally, Orchis glanced off from so
unpleasing a subject into the most unexpected reflections, taken from a
religious point of view, upon the unstableness and deceitfulness of the
human heart. But having, as he thought, experienced something of that
sort of thing, China Aster did not take exception to his friend's
observations, but still refrained from so doing, almost as much for the
sake of sympathetic sociality as anything else. Presently, Orchis,
without much ceremony, rose, and saying he must write a letter to his
wife, bade his friend good-bye, but without warmly shaking him by the
hand as of old.

"In much concern at the change, China Aster made earnest inquiries in
suitable quarters, as to what things, as yet unheard of, had befallen
Orchis, to bring about such a revolution; and learned at last that,
besides traveling, and getting married, and joining the sect of
Come-Outers, Orchis had somehow got a bad dyspepsia, and lost
considerable property through a breach of trust on the part of a factor
in New York. Telling these things to Old Plain Talk, that man of some
knowledge of the world shook his old head, and told China Aster that,
though he hoped it might prove otherwise, yet it seemed to him that all
he had communicated about Orchis worked together for bad omens as to his
future forbearance--especially, he added with a grim sort of smile, in
view of his joining the sect of Come-Outers; for, if some men knew what
was their inmost natures, instead of coming out with it, they would try
their best to keep it in, which, indeed, was the way with the prudent
sort. In all which sour notions Old Prudence, as usual, chimed in.

"When interest-day came again, China Aster, by the utmost exertions,
could only pay Orchis' agent a small part of what was due, and a part of
that was made up by his children's gift money (bright tenpenny pieces
and new quarters, kept in their little money-boxes), and pawning his
best clothes, with those of his wife and children, so that all were
subjected to the hardship of staying away from church. And the old
usurer, too, now beginning to be obstreperous, China Aster paid him his
interest and some other pressing debts with money got by, at last,
mortgaging the candlery.

"When next interest-day came round for Orchis, not a penny could be
raised. With much grief of heart, China Aster so informed Orchis' agent.
Meantime, the note to the old usurer fell due, and nothing from China
Aster was ready to meet it; yet, as heaven sends its rain on the just
and unjust alike, by a coincidence not unfavorable to the old farmer,
the well-to-do uncle, the tanner, having died, the usurer entered upon
possession of such part of his property left by will to the wife of
China Aster. When still the next interest-day for Orchis came round, it
found China Aster worse off than ever; for, besides his other troubles,
he was now weak with sickness. Feebly dragging himself to Orchis' agent,
he met him in the street, told him just how it was; upon which the
agent, with a grave enough face, said that he had instructions from his
employer not to crowd him about the interest at present, but to say to
him that about the time the note would mature, Orchis would have heavy
liabilities to meet, and therefore the note must at that time be
certainly paid, and, of course, the back interest with it; and not only
so, but, as Orchis had had to allow the interest for good part of the
time, he hoped that, for the back interest, China Aster would, in
reciprocation, have no objections to allowing interest on the interest
annually. To be sure, this was not the law; but, between friends who
accommodate each other, it was the custom.

"Just then, Old Plain Talk with Old Prudence turned the corner, coming
plump upon China Aster as the agent left him; and whether it was a
sun-stroke, or whether they accidentally ran against him, or whether it
was his being so weak, or whether it was everything together, or how it
was exactly, there is no telling, but poor China Aster fell to the
earth, and, striking his head sharply, was picked up senseless. It was a
day in July; such a light and heat as only the midsummer banks of the
inland Ohio know. China Aster was taken home on a door; lingered a few
days with a wandering mind, and kept wandering on, till at last, at dead
of night, when nobody was aware, his spirit wandered away into the other
world.

"Old Plain Talk and Old Prudence, neither of whom ever omitted attending
any funeral, which, indeed, was their chief exercise--these two were
among the sincerest mourners who followed the remains of the son of
their ancient friend to the grave.

"It is needless to tell of the executions that followed; how that the
candlery was sold by the mortgagee; how Orchis never got a penny for his
loan; and how, in the case of the poor widow, chastisement was tempered
with mercy; for, though she was left penniless, she was not left
childless. Yet, unmindful of the alleviation, a spirit of complaint, at
what she impatiently called the bitterness of her lot and the hardness
of the world, so preyed upon her, as ere long to hurry her from the
obscurity of indigence to the deeper shades of the tomb.

"But though the straits in which China Aster had left his family had,
besides apparently dimming the world's regard, likewise seemed to dim
its sense of the probity of its deceased head, and though this, as some
thought, did not speak well for the world, yet it happened in this case,
as in others, that, though the world may for a time seem insensible to
that merit which lies under a cloud, yet, sooner or later, it always
renders honor where honor is due; for, upon the death of the widow, the
freemen of Marietta, as a tribute of respect for China Aster, and an
expression of their conviction of his high moral worth, passed a
resolution, that, until they attained maturity, his children should be
considered the town's guests. No mere verbal compliment, like those of
some public bodies; for, on the same day, the orphans were officially
installed in that hospitable edifice where their worthy grandfather, the
town's guest before them, had breathed his last breath.

"But sometimes honor maybe paid to the memory of an honest man, and
still his mound remain without a monument. Not so, however, with the
candle-maker. At an early day, Plain Talk had procured a plain stone,
and was digesting in his mind what pithy word or two to place upon it,
when there was discovered, in China Aster's otherwise empty wallet, an
epitaph, written, probably, in one of those disconsolate hours, attended
with more or less mental aberration, perhaps, so frequent with him for
some months prior to his end. A memorandum on the back expressed the
wish that it might be placed over his grave. Though with the sentiment
of the epitaph Plain Talk did not disagree, he himself being at times of
a hypochondriac turn--at least, so many said--yet the language struck
him as too much drawn out; so, after consultation with Old Prudence, he
decided upon making use of the epitaph, yet not without verbal
retrenchments. And though, when these were made, the thing still
appeared wordy to him, nevertheless, thinking that, since a dead man was
to be spoken about, it was but just to let him speak for himself,
especially when he spoke sincerely, and when, by so doing, the more
salutary lesson would be given, he had the retrenched inscription
chiseled as follows upon the stone.

  'HERE LIE
  THE REMAINS OF
  CHINA ASTER THE CANDLE-MAKER,
  WHOSE CAREER
  WAS AN EXAMPLE OF THE TRUTH OF SCRIPTURE, AS FOUND
  IN THE
  SOBER PHILOSOPHY
  OF
  SOLOMON THE WISE;
  FOR HE WAS RUINED BY ALLOWING HIMSELF TO BE PERSUADED,
  AGAINST HIS BETTER SENSE,
  INTO THE FREE INDULGENCE OF CONFIDENCE,
  AND
  AN ARDENTLY BRIGHT VIEW OF LIFE,
  TO THE EXCLUSION
  OF
  THAT COUNSEL WHICH COMES BY HEEDING
  THE
  OPPOSITE VIEW.'

"This inscription raised some talk in the town, and was rather severely
criticised by the capitalist--one of a very cheerful turn--who had
secured his loan to China Aster by the mortgage; and though it also
proved obnoxious to the man who, in town-meeting, had first moved for
the compliment to China Aster's memory, and, indeed, was deemed by him a
sort of slur upon the candle-maker, to that degree that he refused to
believe that the candle-maker himself had composed it, charging Old
Plain Talk with the authorship, alleging that the internal evidence
showed that none but that veteran old croaker could have penned such a
jeremiade--yet, for all this, the stone stood. In everything, of course,
Old Plain Talk was seconded by Old Prudence; who, one day going to the
grave-yard, in great-coat and over-shoes--for, though it was a sunshiny
morning, he thought that, owing to heavy dews, dampness might lurk in
the ground--long stood before the stone, sharply leaning over on his
staff, spectacles on nose, spelling out the epitaph word by word; and,
afterwards meeting Old Plain Talk in the street, gave a great rap with
his stick, and said: 'Friend, Plain Talk, that epitaph will do very
well. Nevertheless, one short sentence is wanting.' Upon which, Plain
Talk said it was too late, the chiseled words being so arranged, after
the usual manner of such inscriptions, that nothing could be interlined.
Then,' said Old Prudence, 'I will put it in the shape of a postscript.'
Accordingly, with the approbation of Old Plain Talk, he had the
following words chiseled at the left-hand corner of the stone, and
pretty low down:

  'The root of all was a friendly loan.'"

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

completion: China Aster is a poor candle maker. China's formerly poor friend Orchis is a shoemaker who won the lottery. Orchis forces China to accept a check for $1,000 to invest in a different kind of candle material. China thinks this is a bad idea. His dad's old friends, nicknamed Plain Talk and Old Prudence, think this is a bad idea. Orchis makes China accept the money, anyway. China plans to return the money, but he dreams that an angel tells him it's okay to accept the check. Plain Talk and Old Prudence tell China this doesn't mean an actual angel told him anything; it just means he dreamed of an angel. China accepts the money anyway. Before Orchis leaves on a flashy trip to Europe, he tells China not to worry about the loan that's due in four years, because he's not even going to accept repayment. China cashes the check and tries the new candle material Orchis suggested. It bombs. China tries two other business moves to improve his sales. They bomb. China's been paying a lawyer working for Orchis interest on the loan , but it's clear he's not going to have the money when the loan period is up. China takes out another loan from a farmer. This one is way worse, because China promises the inheritance his wife will get from her rich uncle if the repayment fails. To make money, China sells his shop, becomes a journeyman, gets into more debt, opens a new shop, mortgages that shop to partially pay Orchis back , then dies. China dies by falling down and hitting his head after Orchis has given him a guilt trip about being a bad friend. Why a bad friend? Because China doesn't have the money to pay Orchis back , that's why. At the spot where China fell, Plain Talk and Old Prudence find China's wallet. In it, he had written his own premature epitaph. Super grim. It's basically a bleak warning about going against your better judgment to have giddy confidence in others. The incident causes a stir among the people in town who have profited off of China's debt and death. Afterwards, Plain Talk and Old Prudence add a line about how this all started with a friendly loan. Dark.


prompt:
Chapter: CHAPTER XLI. ENDING WITH A RUPTURE OF THE HYPOTHESIS.

"With what heart," cried Frank, still in character, "have you told me
this story? A story I can no way approve; for its moral, if accepted,
would drain me of all reliance upon my last stay, and, therefore, of my
last courage in life. For, what was that bright view of China Aster but
a cheerful trust that, if he but kept up a brave heart, worked hard, and
ever hoped for the best, all at last would go well? If your purpose,
Charlie, in telling me this story, was to pain me, and keenly, you have
succeeded; but, if it was to destroy my last confidence, I praise God
you have not."

"Confidence?" cried Charlie, who, on his side, seemed with his whole
heart to enter into the spirit of the thing, "what has confidence to do
with the matter? That moral of the story, which I am for commending to
you, is this: the folly, on both sides, of a friend's helping a friend.
For was not that loan of Orchis to China Aster the first step towards
their estrangement? And did it not bring about what in effect was the
enmity of Orchis? I tell you, Frank, true friendship, like other
precious things, is not rashly to be meddled with. And what more
meddlesome between friends than a loan? A regular marplot. For how can
you help that the helper must turn out a creditor? And creditor and
friend, can they ever be one? no, not in the most lenient case; since,
out of lenity to forego one's claim, is less to be a friendly creditor
than to cease to be a creditor at all. But it will not do to rely upon
this lenity, no, not in the best man; for the best man, as the worst, is
subject to all mortal contingencies. He may travel, he may marry, he may
join the Come-Outers, or some equally untoward school or sect, not to
speak of other things that more or less tend to new-cast the character.
And were there nothing else, who shall answer for his digestion, upon
which so much depends?"

"But Charlie, dear Charlie----"

"Nay, wait.--You have hearkened to my story in vain, if you do not see
that, however indulgent and right-minded I may seem to you now, that is
no guarantee for the future. And into the power of that uncertain
personality which, through the mutability of my humanity, I may
hereafter become, should not common sense dissuade you, my dear Frank,
from putting yourself? Consider. Would you, in your present need, be
willing to accept a loan from a friend, securing him by a mortgage on
your homestead, and do so, knowing that you had no reason to feel
satisfied that the mortgage might not eventually be transferred into the
hands of a foe? Yet the difference between this man and that man is not
so great as the difference between what the same man be to-day and what
he may be in days to come. For there is no bent of heart or turn of
thought which any man holds by virtue of an unalterable nature or will.
Even those feelings and opinions deemed most identical with eternal
right and truth, it is not impossible but that, as personal persuasions,
they may in reality be but the result of some chance tip of Fate's elbow
in throwing her dice. For, not to go into the first seeds of things, and
passing by the accident of parentage predisposing to this or that habit
of mind, descend below these, and tell me, if you change this man's
experiences or that man's books, will wisdom go surety for his unchanged
convictions? As particular food begets particular dreams, so particular
experiences or books particular feelings or beliefs. I will hear nothing
of that fine babble about development and its laws; there is no
development in opinion and feeling but the developments of time and
tide. You may deem all this talk idle, Frank; but conscience bids me
show you how fundamental the reasons for treating you as I do."

"But Charlie, dear Charlie, what new notions are these? I thought that
man was no poor drifting weed of the universe, as you phrased it; that,
if so minded, he could have a will, a way, a thought, and a heart of his
own? But now you have turned everything upside down again, with an
inconsistency that amazes and shocks me."

"Inconsistency? Bah!"

"There speaks the ventriloquist again," sighed Frank, in bitterness.

Illy pleased, it may be, by this repetition of an allusion little
flattering to his originality, however much so to his docility, the
disciple sought to carry it off by exclaiming: "Yes, I turn over day and
night, with indefatigable pains, the sublime pages of my master, and
unfortunately for you, my dear friend, I find nothing _there_ that leads
me to think otherwise than I do. But enough: in this matter the
experience of China Aster teaches a moral more to the point than
anything Mark Winsome can offer, or I either."

"I cannot think so, Charlie; for neither am I China Aster, nor do I
stand in his position. The loan to China Aster was to extend his
business with; the loan I seek is to relieve my necessities."

"Your dress, my dear Frank, is respectable; your cheek is not gaunt. Why
talk of necessities when nakedness and starvation beget the only real
necessities?"

"But I need relief, Charlie; and so sorely, that I now conjure you to
forget that I was ever your friend, while I apply to you only as a
fellow-being, whom, surely, you will not turn away."

"That I will not. Take off your hat, bow over to the ground, and
supplicate an alms of me in the way of London streets, and you shall not
be a sturdy beggar in vain. But no man drops pennies into the hat of a
friend, let me tell you. If you turn beggar, then, for the honor of
noble friendship, I turn stranger."

"Enough," cried the other, rising, and with a toss of his shoulders
seeming disdainfully to throw off the character he had assumed.
"Enough. I have had my fill of the philosophy of Mark Winsome as put
into action. And moonshiny as it in theory may be, yet a very practical
philosophy it turns out in effect, as he himself engaged I should find.
But, miserable for my race should I be, if I thought he spoke truth when
he claimed, for proof of the soundness of his system, that the study of
it tended to much the same formation of character with the experiences
of the world.--Apt disciple! Why wrinkle the brow, and waste the oil
both of life and the lamp, only to turn out a head kept cool by the
under ice of the heart? What your illustrious magian has taught you, any
poor, old, broken-down, heart-shrunken dandy might have lisped. Pray,
leave me, and with you take the last dregs of your inhuman philosophy.
And here, take this shilling, and at the first wood-landing buy yourself
a few chips to warm the frozen natures of you and your philosopher by."

With these words and a grand scorn the cosmopolitan turned on his heel,
leaving his companion at a loss to determine where exactly the
fictitious character had been dropped, and the real one, if any,
resumed. If any, because, with pointed meaning, there occurred to him,
as he gazed after the cosmopolitan, these familiar lines:

                  "All the world's a stage,
    And all the men and women merely players,
    Who have their exits and their entrances,
    And one man in his time plays many parts."

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

completion: The tale does not sit well with Frank, and he erupts at Egbert-as-Charlie. He argues that this story undermines one's confidence in one's fellow man. Confidence? "Charlie" is startled. This isn't about confidence; it's about the folly of lending to friends. "Charlie" reiterates that giving a loan to a friend ends the friendship by making one friend a creditor. Plus, how can you even trust your friend as a lender? He might start off as a friend but then turn on you. Friends to foes is an easy-peasy change. Frank doesn't buy it. He also accuses "Charlie" of just repeating Mark Winsome's philosophy without thinking for himself. Egbert is riled up by the accusation of not having his own mind, but he stands by his beliefs. Frank: Forget it, but look, "Charlie," look: China needed a loan for his business; I need a need a loan for life stuffs. "Charlie": You look healthy enough. Frank: Gah, okay. What if I don't come to you as a friend, but just as a human in need? "Charlie": Go ahead. Here's the thing, though--take off your hat, get on your knees, and beg me. What is this dude's problem? No really. He's got issues. "Charlie": If you beg me, though, I'll hear your plea not as a friend, but as a stranger. Harsh. Frank blows up and tells "Charlie" enough is enough. He gives Egbert some money and says to use it to buy wood to burn so that he and Winsome can warm up their cold hearts. Egbert is startled. He then pulls a get-out-of-jail-guilt-free card and chalks up the outburst to Shakespeare's line: "All the world's a stage."