John Gentian, Esq., or Major Gentian, or the Dean, or the Major, or Jack—for all these styles are his according to circumstances and the person mentioning or addressing him—is one of those socially notable characters whose names for all the notability will be found rather in the trustworthy City Directory than in the not-always-reliable Biographical Dictionary. Accordingly in the former ‘John Gentian’ is set down as hailing from the ‘Burgundy Club,’ the street and number of the club-house duly and accurately given. In brief, John Gentian is a bachelor having chambers on an upper story of the club-house, a privilege which at his solicitation was cheerfully accorded him, as by seniority of membership, to say nothing of happy qualifications in his character, Dean of the Chapter of Burgundians, for so do they denominate themselves, the brethren of that congenial fraternity. This captain of the good fellows belongs to a transplanted shoot of Southern stock for two generations taking root and branching out in the North, within the borders of a State which, thanks to its relative geographical position and circumstances originating in that, least partakes of a sectional spirit. For now a fair period, ever since the latter part of 1865, the Dean has gone on in what would seem to be the after-mission of his life, namely, the dispensing of those less abbreviated greetings on the Avenue and considerate old-school hospitalities of the board, hardly practicable for the ‘business-man’ of our 354day, or, for that matter, the man of leisure either, unless abounding in natural benevolence backed up by its desirable concomitant, a comfortable bank account. Do not infer, however, that there is aught of Count D’Orsay superannuated, or Sir Charles Grandison, become senile, in our Dean of the Burgundians. He is no prodigal in airs and graces, and, on the contrary, sometimes takes singular liberties with etiquette, not out of ignorance, to be sure, or the Leveller’s contempt; no, but from a certain impulsive straightforwardness at times, hardly compatible with the abstract theory of a formalised gentlemanhood. Furthermore, he of late has permitted himself an easy latitude in his dress, evincing a lack of proper reverence for mercers and the mode. But yet more astray, he will, upon provocation—say, at some story of perfidy or brutal behaviour—incontinently rap out an expletive, startling to the ladies as Brandt’s flourished tomahawk at the London masked ball long ago. Then again, as if there were no end to his derelictions, he, when convenient to him, thinks nothing of carrying a brown paper parcel in the street rather than trouble the shopkeeper to send some inexpensive small matter to his rooms. Notwithstanding these deviations from the conventionally correct, there is that in the look of Major Gentian, something in the ‘cut of his jib,’ as the sailors say, if not in the end of his coat, that involuntarily inspires respect, yes, even in cabby himself. Cabby, before club-house or theatre, poised on the curb, expectant of the prey, would never dream of hailing him (the Dean) with the ambiguous ‘Gent.’ Should he do so, whether out of ignorance or sly impudence, the Major would have to hold his temper well in hand to obviate a violent breach of the peace. To Boss he objects not, that Dutch monosyllable having an honest bovine sound to it, and being, in fact, a natural localism of a city 355first settled by the Hollander; and if master be not the word’s exact equivalent, it would be difficult to find one. The Major’s propensity is to occasional unlicensed emphasis in his talk, a thing assuredly not commendable in anybody, very likely contracted from certain experiences, namely, his adventures in early life among our frontiersmen. Nor could his subsequent campaignings during our Civil War have served to displace the secular expletives by Biblical ejaculations such as those attributed to Cromwell’s pious troopers, though, indeed, the historical sceptics of our time have suggested doubts as to whether even these same martial deacons for all their psalmody in the tents did not during active operations against the foe indulge more or less in that ‘horrible swearing’ wherewith ‘the army in Flanders’ stands pre-eminently charged. To terrorise, if possible, this pertains to the true function of a soldier in the field. The point is energetically put by a Roman consul, one of those schooling his infantry on the eve of an eye-to-eye and hand-to-hand encounter of ancient war. To the same purpose is a well-known passage in Shakespeare. But there are various modes of terrorising as a preliminary to closely engaging. The Chinese Achilles, for example, hurls at the foe missiles of an unmentionable name in English, and which explode an abomination of stench. The sequence is hot air, though disagreeable, and what is ‘horrible swearing’ but the same? It is perhaps equally efficacious, and, in military ethics, why may not either be used as an adjunct to the artillery? But alas for the oathing. It becomes a habit, and so in times of peace is mechanically resorted to by the retired Christian veteran when there is no military call for it. In short, a soldier’s or sailor’s oath, however shocking to ears polite, is, at least when the man is not 356actually engaged in tussle with the foe public or private, but an idiocratic form given to whatever meaning may lurk in such phrases as Bless my soul! Thunder! Goodness gracious! If, however, sin be not of the heart but the tongue, a theological opinion to which some would seem to incline, then woe to no few of our warriors in the late Civil Unhappiness. For, in that case, who but an orthodox Calvinist can with any adequacy appreciate the sublime disinterestedness of their patriotism, since from his point of view, not alone did our heroes jeopardise their lives for us, but mortally endangered their souls. And for what? Oh futility! in the attempts to terrorise enemies who, being our own countrymen, of course, refused to be terrified, though in the end fate, working through force, made them succumb. Though of all men Jack be the least exclusive as to the company he keeps, and is anything but bumptious in his manner, there have not been wanting detractors who have insinuated a charge against him rather serious in a democratic community, namely, not alone a tendency to the aristocratic in general, but a weakness for certain gewgaws, that savour of the monarchical. True, at certain grand banquets, where as an honorary guest he sits at the high table, banquets more especially of those national societies wherewith our cosmopolitan city abounds—the St. Denis, St. Nicholas, St. Patrick, St. George, St. Andrew; on these occasions the Major a little lays himself open to invidious suspicion by wearing on his left lapel the eagle wings in gold of the Cincinnati, a venerable order whereof he who still reigns ‘first in the hearts of his countrymen’ was the original head. This decoration descended to the Major from his great-grandfather, a South Carolinian, a white-haired captain of infantry at the battle of Saratoga 357Springs, who therefore, being eligible as a Revolutionary officer, was enrolled in the order upon its formation just after the Peace. Now, an inherited badge of the Cincinnati, every American, however ultra in his democracy, must allow to be something of which no other American need be ashamed. As the Major himself once demanded, and with some animation—‘Compared with this bit of old gold,’ tapping it with his hand, ‘what is the insignia of the Knights of the Golden Fleece or the Knights of the Spanish Order of the Holy Ghost? Gimcracks, sir! and the last, in fact as in name, but a ghostly sort of vanity.’