{"id":"01KG8AMA7MP9VNX90AG7MHH3XF","cid":"bafkreieo2ytaldkrwo4nxphtxbngiwwhjxsjsz6qjhaxarr3nbyphyrw3q","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":11962,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:26.985Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 30","source_file":"01KG89J1FFTGRE9J93Z3K29NGY","start_line":11894,"text":"after a fashion done accordingly. As to the interspersed ballads and\r\nditties--at the which, peradventure, thou mayest stare even as Rip van\r\nWinkle, after his resurrection, did at his son--I do assure thee, Dean,\r\nthey are essentially but thoughts and conceits of thine own, the product\r\nof seeds which planted and spontaneously developing in me, eventually\r\neffloresced into rhyme.\r\n\r\nBut to soften the liberty here taken, as well as the licence throughout,\r\nyes, and not without hope to propitiate and even please thee, I have so\r\ncontrived matters that thou personated the part here allotted thee at\r\nthe special instance of M. de Grandvin; thus in a literary way\r\nassociating thee with one whose social companionship thou so\r\nunaffectedly lovest, and whose magnanimous spirit thou art ever fain to\r\nimbibe. Vale!\r\n\r\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n                              JACK GENTIAN\r\n\r\n               (_Omitted from the final sketch of him._)\r\n\r\n\r\nTrue, hardly to-day art thou what formerly thou wast. Thou thyself\r\nsometimes hintest that thy decline has even more than begun. With which\r\nconfession for warrant some there be--alas for them! who in private are\r\nnot slow to contribute confirmatory words and enlarge thereon.\r\n\r\n‘Failing?’ says one. ‘To be sure! And how manifest the signs. In July\r\nyou see him parrying the sun with his big white umbrella green-line;\r\nnevertheless, ere the straw hats yet begin to disappear from the\r\npromenade, reassuming his slouched felt sombrero he betakes himself to\r\nthe street’s sunny side.’ ‘I have noted that,’ says another; ‘but--will\r\nyou believe it?--late I espied him musing on a shaded bench in Madison\r\nSquare; in the forenoon it was, too, not far from a seated file of\r\ndisreputable nondescripts, non-producers in deplorable attire, plunged\r\nin lugubrious reveries on their doubtless misspent lives. Yes, and\r\npresently he rose, and after looking about him went straight up to a\r\nsolitary old vagabond, and standing before him seemed making personal\r\ninquiries of him, and concluded by putting hand in pocket and bestowing\r\nsomething upon him. Now seems not that an indication of impaired\r\nsenses?--deliberately to put a premium on improvidence and\r\nthriftlessness, or worse?’ ‘You go a little too far there,’ observes a\r\nmiddle-aged merchant and vestryman, the comfortable president of a\r\ncharity; ‘the Major was always benevolent, as officially I have reason\r\nto know, always benevolent, but too often, as I hear, unsystematically\r\nso; and this unwisdom may very likely increase with years. But I hardly\r\nthought that he had any way so far decayed in his sense of what is\r\nbeseeming in a gentleman whatever his years, as publicly to idle, and in\r\nbusiness hours, and in such vicinity as you mention. Besides, those\r\nMadison Square benches so frequented by the untidy, how can some of them\r\nbe otherwise than infected, yes, and with vermin. Dear me,’ in a tone of\r\nreal concern, ‘it were almost enough to banish him from respectable\r\nsociety were it not the esteemed Major and the Dean.’\r\n\r\n‘And with a warm deposit at his bank, too; forget not that, my good\r\nsir,’ gravely observed a waggish young berry-brown cynic in yachtsman’s\r\nattire, secretly amused at all this. Whereat the respectable vestryman\r\nwith some severity, ‘Sir, that has nothing to do with the matter. This\r\nis America, Christian America, thank God; where, be it what it may,\r\none’s bank account is of no account whatever in an American’s estimate\r\nof a fellow American.’ Upon which the elders cast a quiet glance toward\r\nthe young gentleman, significant of their sense that he had been justly\r\nrebuked; and the rebuked wag, as conscious of the fact, assumed a\r\ncontrite demeanour into which, however, he contrived to infuse a twinkle\r\nof irony.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 30"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJWBYEAWFNPZ7F62GDZWF","peer_type":"segment","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1FFTGRE9J93Z3K29NGY","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AMA77B32QT9BX73P750HB","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AMA7M2FVX4ZMK4K389VPD","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:33.012Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:45.959Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}