Descending in the scale of what is termed gentility, I found darker and deeper themes forspeculation
Finds more negative aspects and people as he looks and describes more closely. He's painting a picture that the reader would have a negative feeling towards, but he seems to feel indifferent about it
I descended to details, andregarded with minute interest the innumerable varieties of figure, dress, air, gait, visage, andexpression of countenance.
Is able to observe the people more individually, after just looking at them at them superficially.
He inhabits them and yet does not dwell in them
Interesting how he points out that we build buildings but do not dwell in them. What would be the point of this?
inequalities of power between otherwise unrelated bodies
Boundaries represent division or assertion of power. Can be connected to the levees and prisons map in Unfathomable City.
a sea in the middle of the sea
Interesting Comparison. A sea has highs and lows in the form of waves. The City has physical highs and lows in the form of buildings. This can even be stretched into figurative highs and lows of New York.
Structuring and ideQ.tifying the eO:vironment is a vital ability among all mobile animals.
this is necessary to the survival of a species
They,insinuate themselves into his confidence and friendship."
trust no one
Samson giving up his locks,"2
Samson is a biblical character who was blessed with extraordinary powers and his only weaknesses were women and his hair. These weaknesses led to his death. Comparing the loss of conscience to a biblical character implies that not only is the influence of a confidence man powerful, but it is also fatal.
to a poison, a disease, a source of contamination and corruption. The impressions made by wicked companions were "like poison, taken into the physical system, and will be sure, sooner or later, to reveal its bitter results."
The influence of confidence is like poison, and by the looks of it there is no antidote.
Although the term confidence man does not appear in the advice manuals, it accurately identifies the villain of the piece. The seducer-whether rake or pimp, gambler or, thief-begins his as-sault on the innocent youth by winning his confidence through an offer of friendship and entertainment. In the classic antebellum tale of seduction, he then leads the youth into a gorgeous theater-the seducer's natural habitat, for he himself is a skilled actor. He takes him to a fashionable club where he coaxes his prey into accepting his fatal first drink and gradually draws him into a card game. Finally, he lures his victim to a brothel where, if the theater and the alcohol and the gambling have failed to win him to a life of vice, illicit sexuality succeeds. The youth's character has been destroyed, step by fatal step, because he has been tricked into offering his confidence to a man without principle, a man whose art it'is to deceive others through false appearances.
confidence men=idea of californication. (helps understand it in a modern sense)