{"id":"01KG6G8ADRSQPAXFNHGV6QFWRK","cid":"bafkreicqsiljcffbvhtcvaxonx45r7nfgrnuuu3xi7atkhfbc7bn2fvlsu","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":11648,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T03:48:16.153Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","start_line":11587,"text":"            TO MAJOR JOHN GENTIAN, DEAN OF THE BURGUNDY CLUB\r\n\r\n\r\nWith thy rare single-mindedness, so resented by the ambidextrous\r\ndouble-dealers, a virtue putting thee in a worldly sense almost as much\r\nat disadvantage with them as thy single arm (the other lost in the\r\nWilderness under Grant) assuredly would in a personal encounter; the\r\ngenial humour of thy club-chat, garnished, as not unfrequently it is,\r\neven like to a holiday barn, with sprigs of classic parsley set about it\r\nor inserted cloves of old English proverbs, or yet older Latin ones\r\nequally commonplace, yet never losing the verity in them, their\r\npreservative spice; thy yellow, wrinkled parchment from Harvard hung up\r\nframed in thy bachelor quarters (so convenient to the Club); thy\r\ncherished eagle of the Society of the Cincinnati, a golden insignia thou\r\npolishest up and sportest on occasion; and--be it never omitted--thy\r\nhigh relish for the qualities of M. de Grandvin, through frequent\r\ncommunion with whom thou hast caught much of his generous spirit\r\nenhancing what is naturally thine own, yes, and something of his beaming\r\naspect as well; insomuch that unto thee--after him--belong all the\r\ntitles of good fellowship. Dean of the Burgundians, but I love thee!\r\nThough some of the points just cited might of themselves avail to denote\r\nthee, Dean, two other characteristics there are which peradventure may\r\nserve to signalise. Though a soldier of the Civil War, and a gazetted\r\none, thou at all times, even upon that legal holiday which has\r\nundesignedly become the annual commemoration of that war, refrainest\r\nfrom wearing on thy person any memorial thereof. And, ever since the\r\nPeace, even as during the entire military contest, no superfluous\r\nsyllable ever fell from thy lips touching the Southern half of thy\r\ncountry.\r\n\r\nNow, as to the personal memorial, honourably worn by so many, if thou\r\ndeclined to wear it, was this because thou wert in sympathy with the\r\nspirit of thy deplored New England friend, Charles Sumner--whom, for\r\nwhat was sterling in him, thou didst so sincerely honour, though far\r\nfrom sharing in all his advocated measures? Years ago Grant and Lee\r\njoined hands at Appomattox. Art thou such an old-fashioned Roman in thy\r\npatriotism that thou wouldst consign to oblivion the fact that thy\r\ncountrymen, claiming the van of Adam’s alleged advance, were but\r\nyesterday plunged in patricidal strife? And, for thy never being a\r\npartisan animadverter, is that because for all the free thought that\r\nbeats in thy brain, at heart thou art the captive of Christ, yea, even\r\nsomething of a Christian, and though but dimly conscious of it, perhaps,\r\nart not unmindful of the divine text which implies that if sinners\r\nabound they are not in vain demarked from the saints by any parallel of\r\nlatitude. Or, rather, that there are no saints, but that all mankind,\r\nnot excluding Americans, are sinners--miserable sinners, as even no few\r\nBostonians themselves nowadays contritely respond in the liturgy.\r\n\r\nHowever this be, both the omission and the abstention referred to are in\r\nsignificant contrast with thy words relative to that elder war wherein\r\nthy grandfather was one of the ‘rebels,’ a contrast emphasised though\r\ninvoluntarily in thy social utterances upon every recurrence of our one\r\nnational holiday.\r\n\r\nOn the fourth morning of each July, about the tenth hour by the club\r\nclock, spruced up in thy goodly person and decked at lapel with the\r\ngolden eagle suspended by the white-bordered blue ribbon, an order which\r\nWashington and Lafayette and thy grandfather and father wore before\r\nthee, thou takest thy customary place at the club’s bay-window. There\r\nthou comfortably settlest thyself till lunch-time, discoursing at whiles\r\nwith whomsoever may, fortunately for himself, happen to be at hand.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6G6RG13WHMX37KHEWTF2ZK","peer_type":"frontmatter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG2T49K0H5GDRB0G4YDTPG8H","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6G8ADR8RFAS6KGT2VRAAGM","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T03:48:22.584Z","ts":"2026-01-30T03:48:32.525Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}