- end_line
- 3436
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T07:57:45.581Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 3380
- text
- THE PARADISE OF BACHELORS
It lies not far from Temple-Bar.
Going to it, by the usual way, is like stealing from the heated plain
into some cool, deep glen, shady among the harboring hills.
Sick with the din and soiled with the mud of Fleet Street--where the
Benedick tradesmen are hurrying by, with ledger-lines ruled along their
brows; thinking upon rise of bread and fall of babies--you adroitly
turn a mystic corner--not a street--glide down a dim, monastic way,
flanked by dark, sedate, and solemn piles, and still wending on, give
the whole careworn world the slip, and, disentangled, stand beneath the
quiet cloisters of the Paradise of Bachelors.
Sweet are the oases in Sahara; charming the isle-groves of August
prairies; delectable pure faith amidst a thousand perfidies: but
sweeter, still more charming, more delectable, the dreamy Paradise of
Bachelors, found in the stony heart of stunning London.
In mild meditation pace the cloisters; take your pleasure, sip your
leisure, in the garden waterward; go linger in the ancient library;
go worship in the sculptured chapel; but little have you seen, just
nothing do you know, not the kernel have you tasted, till you dine
among the banded Bachelors, and see their convivial eyes and glasses
sparkle. Not dine in bustling commons, during term-time, in the
hall; but tranquilly, by private hint, at a private table; some fine
Templar's hospitality invited guest.
Templar? That's a romantic name. Let me see. Brian de Bois Gilbert was
a Templar, I believe. Do we understand you to insinuate that those
famous Templars still survive in modern London? May the ring of their
armed heels be heard, and the rattle of their shields, as in mailed
prayer the monk-knights kneel before the consecrated Host? Surely a
monk-knight were a curious sight picking his way along the Strand,
his gleaming corselet and snowy surcoat spattered by an omnibus.
Long-bearded, too, according to his order's rule; his face fuzzy
as a pard's; how would the grim ghost look among the crop-haired,
close-shaven citizens. We know indeed--sad history recounts it--that a
moral blight tainted at last this sacred Brotherhood. Though no sworded
foe might outskill them in the fence, yet the work of luxury crawled
beneath their guard, gnawing the core of knightly troth, nibbling the
monastic vows, till at last the monk's austerity relaxed to wassailing,
and the sworn knights-bachelors grew to be but hypocrites and rakes.
But for all this, quite unprepared were we to learn that
Knights-Templars (if at all in being) were so entirely secularized as
to be reduced from carving out immortal fame in glorious battling for
the Holy Land, to the carving of roast mutton at a dinner-board. Like
Anacreon, do these degenerate Templars now think it sweeter far to fall
in banquet hall than in war? Or, indeed, how can there be any survival
of that famous order? Templars in modern London! Templars in their
red-cross mantles smoking cigars at the Divan! Templars crowded in a
railway train, till, stacked with steel helmet, spear, and shield, the
whole train looks like one elongated locomotive!
- title
- Chunk 1