



Produced by Brendan Lane, Charlie Kirschner and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team.





YOUNG LIVES

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