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_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_.
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.
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.