Young Lives by Richard Le Gallienne
page 71 of 266 (26%)
page 71 of 266 (26%)
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of Nothing, than Nothing out of Everything. Here so little had made so
much; here so much had made--hardly even a lord. It was better for your circumstances to be inadequate for you, than you to be inadequate for your circumstances. Henry had amused himself one day in making a list of all their "ancestors" to whom any sort of worldly or romantic distinction could attach, and it ran somewhat as follows:-- (1) A great-grandmother on the father's side, fabled to live in some sort of a farm-house château in Guernsey, who once a year, up till two years ago, when she died, had sent them a hamper of apples from Channel Island orchards. Said "château" believed by his children to descend to James Mesurier, but the latter indifferent to the matter, and relatives on the spot probably able to look after it. (2) A great-grandfather on the mother's side given to travel, a "rolling-stone," fond of books and talk, and rich in humanity. Surviving still in a high-nosed old silhouette. (3) A grand-uncle on the father's side who was one of Napoleon's guard at St. Helena! (4) A grandfather on the mother's side, who used to design and engrave little wooden blocks for patterns on calico-stuffs, and whose little box of delicate instruments, evidently made for the tracing of lines and flowers, was one of the few family heirlooms. (5) A grandmother on the father's side of whom nothing was known beyond the beautiful fact that she was Irish. |
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