Young Lives   By: Richard Le Gallienne (1866-1947)

BY

RICHARD LE GALLIENNE

1899

TO

ALFRED LEE

IN MEMORY OF ANGEL

September, 1898 .

Let thy soul strive that still the same Be early friendship's sacred flame; The affinities have strongest part In youth, and draw men heart to heart: As life wears on and finds no rest, The individual in each breast Is tyrannous to sunder them .

CONTENTS

Chapter I. HARD YOUNG HEARTS. II. CONCERNING THOSE "ATLANTIC LINERS" AND AN OLD DESK. III. OF THE LOVE OF HENRY AND ESTHER. IV. OF THE PROFESSIONS THAT CHOOSE, AND MIKE LAFLIN. V. OF THE LOVE OF ESTHER AND MIKE, AND THE MESURIER LAW IN REGARD TO "SWEETHEARTS". VI. THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF HOME. VII. A LINK WITH CIVILISATION. VIII. A RHAPSODY OF TYRE. IX. A PENITENTIARY OF THE MATHEMATICS. X. THE GRASS BETWEEN THE FLAG STONES. XI. HUMANITY IN HIGH PLACES. XII. DAMON AND PYTHIAS. XIII. DAMON AND PYTHIAS AT THE THEATRE. XIV. CONTRIBUTIONS TOWARDS A GENEALOGY. XV. MERELY A HUMBLE INTERRUPTION AND ILLUSTRATION OF THE LAST. XVI. CHAPTER FOURTEEN CONCLUDED. XVII. DOT'S DECISION. XVIII. MIKE AND HIS MILLION POUNDS. XIX. ON CERTAIN ADVANTAGES OF A BACKWATER. XX. THE MAN IN POSSESSION. XXI. LITTLE MISS FLOWER. XXII. MIKE'S FIRST LAURELS. XXIII. THE MOTHER OF AN ANGEL. XXIV. AN ANCIENT THEORY OF HEAVEN. XXV. THE LAST CONTINUED, AFTER A BRIEF INTERVAL. XXVI. CONCERNING THE BEST KIND OF WIFE FOR A POET. XXVII. THE BOOK OF ANGELICA. XXVIII. WHAT COMES OF PUBLISHING A BOOK. XXIX. MIKE'S TURN TO MOVE. XXX. UNCHARTERED FREEDOM. XXXI. A PREPOSTEROUS AUNT. XXXII. THE LITERARY GENTLEMAN IN THE BACK PARLOUR. XXXIII. "THIS IS LONDON, THIS IS LIFE". XXXIV. THE WITS. XXXV. BACK TO REALITY. XXXVI. THE OLD HOME MEANWHILE. XXXVII. STAGE WAITS, MR. LAFLIN. XXXVIII. ESTHER AND HENRY ONCE MORE. XXXIX. MIKE AFAR. XL. A LEGACY MORE PRECIOUS THAN GOLD. XLI. LABORIOUS DAYS. XLII. A HEAVIER FOOTFALL. XLIII. STILL ANOTHER CALLER. XLIV. THE END OF A BEGINNING.

YOUNG LIVES

CHAPTER I

HARD YOUNG HEARTS

Behind the Venetian blinds of a respectable middle class, fifty pound a year, "semi detached," "family" house, in a respectable middle class road of the little north county town of Sidon, midway between the trees of wealth upon the hill, and the business quarters that ended in squalor on the bank of the broad and busy river, a house boasting a few shabby trees of its own, in its damp little rockeried slips of front and back gardens, on a May evening some ten or twelve years ago, a momentous crisis of contrasts had been reached.

The house was still as for a battle. It was holding its breath to hear what was going on in the front parlour, the door of which seemed to wear an expression of being more than usually closed. A mournful half light fell through a little stained glass vestibule into a hat racked hall, on the walls of which hung several pictures of those great steamships known as "Atlantic liners" in big gilt frames pictures of a significance presently to be noted. A beautiful old eight day clock ticked solemnly to the flickering of the hall lamp. From below came occasionally a furtive creaking of the kitchen stairs. The two servants were half way up them listening. The stairs a flight above the hall also creaked at intervals. Two young girls, respectively about fourteen and fifteen, were craning necks out of nightdresses over the balusters in a shadowy angle of the staircase. On the floor above them three other little girls of gradually diminishing ages slept, unconscious of the issues being decided between their big brother and their eldest sister on the one side, and their father and mother on the other, in the front parlour below.