{"id":"01KG6GMN3D7G2WGGJWAVXFNJG6","cid":"bafkreigaddeejz6baoixgy7cawt7mytleqihbnfhmd7eqbatfhmzxcpjqe","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":7341,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T03:55:03.883Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","start_line":7281,"text":"Anacreon, do these degenerate Templars now think it sweeter far to fall\r\nin banquet than in war? Or, indeed, how can there be any survival of\r\nthat famous order? Templars in modern London! Templars in their\r\nred-cross mantles smoking cigars at the Divan! Templars crowded in a\r\nrailway train, till, stacked with steel helmet, spear, and shield, the\r\nwhole train looks like one elongated locomotive!\r\n\r\nNo. The genuine Templar is long since departed. Go view the wondrous\r\ntombs in the Temple Church; see there the rigidly-haughty forms\r\nstretched out, with crossed arms upon their stilly hearts, in\r\neverlasting and undreaming rest. Like the years before the flood, the\r\nbold Knights-Templars are no more. Nevertheless, the name remains, and\r\nthe nominal society, and the ancient grounds, and some of the ancient\r\nedifices. But the iron heel is changed to a boot of patent leather; the\r\nlong two-handed sword to a one-handed quill; the monk-giver of\r\ngratuitous ghostly counsel now counsels for a fee; the defender of the\r\nsarcophagus (if in good practice with his weapon) now has more than one\r\ncase to defend; the vowed opener and clearer of all highways leading to\r\nthe Holy Sepulchre, now has it in particular charge to check, to clog,\r\nto hinder, and embarrass all the courts and avenues of Law; the\r\nknight-combatant of the Saracen, breasting spear-points at Acre, now\r\nfights law-points in Westminster Hall. The helmet is a wig. Struck by\r\nTime’s enchanter’s wand, the Templar is to-day a Lawyer.\r\n\r\nBut, like many others tumbled from proud glory’s height--like the apple,\r\nhard on the bough but mellow on the ground--the Templar’s fall has but\r\nmade him all the finer fellow.\r\n\r\nI dare say those old warrior-priests were but gruff and grouty at the\r\nbest; cased in Birmingham hardware, how could their crimped arms give\r\nyours or mine a hearty shake? Their proud, ambitious, monkish souls\r\nclasped shut, like horn-book missals; their very faces clapped in\r\nbombshells; what sort of genial men were these? But best of comrades,\r\nmost affable of hosts, capital diner is the modern Templar. His wit and\r\nwine are both of sparkling brands.\r\n\r\nThe church and cloisters, courts and vaults, lanes and passages,\r\nbanquet-halls, refectories, libraries, terraces, gardens, broad walks,\r\ndomicils, and dessert-rooms, covering a very large space of ground, and\r\nall grouped in central neighbourhood, and quite sequestered from the old\r\ncity’s surrounding din; and everything about the place being kept in\r\nmost bachelor-like particularity, no part of London offers to a quiet\r\nwight so agreeable a refuge.\r\n\r\nThe Temple is indeed a city by itself. A city with all the best\r\nappurtenances, as the above enumeration shows. A city with a park to it,\r\nand flower-beds, and a river-side--the Thames flowing by as openly, in\r\none part, as by Eden’s primal garden flowed the mild Euphrates. In what\r\nis now the Temple Garden the old Crusaders used to exercise their steeds\r\nand lances; the modern Templars now lounge on the benches beneath the\r\ntrees, and, switching their patent-leather boots, in gay discourse\r\nexercise at repartee.\r\n\r\nLong lines of stately portraits in the banquet-halls, show what great\r\nmen of mark--famous nobles, judges, and Lord Chancellors--have in their\r\ntime been Templars. But all Templars are not known to universal fame;\r\nthough, if the having warm hearts and warmer welcomes, full minds and\r\nfuller cellars, and giving good advice and glorious dinners, spiced with\r\nrare divertisements of fun and fancy, merit immortal mention, set down,\r\nye muses, the names of R. F. C. and his imperial brother.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6GK919CZQGXZJDZ30MGYGN","peer_type":"segment","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG2T49K0H5GDRB0G4YDTPG8H","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6GMK2SQW3Y3BJGZRWBB3J2","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG6GMN3DJ5FTEW9YEJS7JXBV","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T03:55:06.733Z","ts":"2026-01-30T03:55:18.358Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}