The Loom of Youth

The Loom of Youth, by Alec
Waugh

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Title: The Loom of Youth
Author: Alec Waugh
Release Date: July 18, 2006 [EBook #18863]
Language: English
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THE LOOM OF YOUTH
"Well, I mean there's Davenham now and--"

"Davenham!" came the scornful retort. "What does it matter what
happens to Davenham? He's absolutely useless to the House, rotten at
games and spends his whole time reading about fossils. Who cares a
curse about Davenham!"
"Oh I suppose you're right, but--"
"My dear ass, of course I am right. Meredith is a simply glorious fellow.
Do you remember the way he brought down Freeman in the Two Cock?
Why, the House simply couldn't get on without him."
To Gordon all this conveyed very little. He had no idea who Meredith
or Davenham were. The only thing he realised was that for those who
wore a blue and gold ribbon laws ceased to exist. It was apparently
rather advantageous to get into the Fifteen. He had not looked on
athletics in that light before. Obviously his preparatory school had
failed singularly to keep level with the times. He had always been told
by the masters there that games were only important for training the
body. But at Fernhurst they seemed the one thing that mattered. To the
athlete all things are forgiven. There was clearly a lot to learn.

"To him who desireth much, much is given; and to him who desireth
little, little is given; but to neither according to the letter of his desire."
GILBERT CANNAN

The Loom of Youth
ALEC WAUGH
Methuen
First published in Great Britain 1917 Reprinted July 1917, August 1917,
September 1917 (twice) November 1917, January 1918, March 1918,
October 1918, 1919, 1921, 1930, 1933, 1945 Cassell's Pocket Library,

1928 Penguin Abridged Edition, 1942 New edition reset and revised
1955 Reprinted 1972
This edition published 1984 by Methuen London Ltd 11 New Fetter
Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Copyright (c) Alec Waugh 1917 ISBN 0 413 54970 4 (hardback) ISBN
0 413 54980 1 (paperback)
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Richard Clay (The Chaucer Press)
Ltd Bungay, Suffolk
This book is available in both a hardcover and paperback edition. The
paperback is solid subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of
trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated
without the Publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover
other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition
including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
* * * * *
Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected in text. There is
one place where a subscript is used and is designated by an underscore
and curly brackets thus: H{2}O.
* * * * *

Dedicatory Letter to Arthur Waugh
My Dear Father,
This book, which I am bringing you, is a very small return for all you
have given me. In every mood, in every phase of my shifting pilgrimage,
I have found you ever the same--loving, sympathetic, wise. You have
been with me in my success, and in my happiness, in my failures and in
my disappointments, in the hours when I have followed wandering fires.
There has never yet come to me a moment when I did not know that I

had but to stretch out my hand to find you at my side. In return for so
much, this first book of mine is a very small offering.
But yet I bring it to you, simply because it is my first. For whatever
altars I may have raised by the wayside, whatever ephemeral loyalties
may have swayed me, my one real lodestar has always been your love,
and sympathy, and guidance. And as in life it has always been to you
first that I have brought my troubles, my aims, my hopes, so in the
world of ideas it is to you that I would bring this, the first-born of my
dreams.
Accept it. For it carries with it the very real and very deep love of a
most grateful son.
A.W.

CONTENTS
Preface page 9
BOOK I: WARP AND WOOF
I Groping 15
II Finding his Feet 21
III The New Philosophy 31
IV New Faces 44
V Emerging 52