| Note: | Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See http://www.archive.org/details/houseoftormentta00gulliala |
My dear David,
Since I first met you, considerably more than a decade ago, ina little studio high up in a great London building, we haveboth seen much water flow under the bridges of our lives.
We have all sorts of memories, have we not?
Late midnights and famishing morrows, in the gay hard dayswhen we were endeavouring to climb the ladder of our Art; asuccession of faces, a welter of experiences. Some of us fellin the struggle; others failed and still haunt the reprobatepurlieus of Fleet Street and the Strand! There was one whoachieved a high and delicate glory before he died—"Tant va lacruche à l'eau qu'à la fin elle se casse."
There is another who is slowly and surely finding his way to acertainty of fame.
And the rest of us have done something, if not—as yet—all wehoped to do. At any rate, the slopes of the first hills liebeneath us. We are in good courage and resolute for themountains.
The mist eddies and is spiralled below in the valleys fromwhich we have come, but already we are among the deep sweetbillows of the mountain winds, and I think it is because wehave both found our "Princess Galvas" that we have got this farupon the way.
We may never stand upon the summit and find that tempest offire we call the Sun full upon us. But the pleasure of going onis ours still—there will always be that.
Ever your friend,
C. RANGER-GULL.