THE WORKS OF JOHN GALSWORTHY
Attack his fleas—though he was supposed
to have none
Dogs: with rudiments of altruism and a sense
of God
Don't hurt others more than is absolutely
necessary
Early morning does not mince words
Era which had canonised hypocrisy
Forgiven me; but she could never forget
Health—He did not want it at such cost
Is anything more pathetic than the faith
of the young?
Law takes a low view of human nature
Let her come to me as she will, when she will,
not at all if she will not
Love has no age, no limit; and no death
Never to see yourself as others see you
Old men learn to forego their whims
People who don't live are wonderfully
preserved
Perching-place; never—never her cage!
Putting up a brave show of being natural
Socialists: they want our goods
Thank you for that good lie
To seem to be respectable was to be
You have to buy experience
COURAGE
COURAGE Is but a word, and yet, of words,
The only sentinel of permanence;
The ruddy watch-fire of cold winter days,
We steal its comfort, lift our weary swords,
And on. For faith—without it—has no sense;
And love to wind of doubt and tremor sways;
And life for ever quaking marsh must tread.
Laws give it not; before it prayer will blush;
Hope has it not; nor pride of being true;
'Tis the mysterious soul which never yields,
But hales us on and on to breast the rush
Of all the fortunes we shall happen through.
And when Death calls across his shadowy fields—
Dying, it answers: "Here! I am not dead!"
SOME FAVORITE PASSAGES
The simple truth, which underlies the whole story, that
where sex attraction is utterly and definitely lacking in
one partner to a union, no amount of pity, or reason, or
duty, or what not, can overcome a repulsion implicit in
Nature.
The tragedy of whose life is the very simple, uncontrollable
tragedy of being unlovable, without quite a thick enough
skin to be thoroughly unconscious of the fact. Not even
Fleur loves Soames as he feels he ought to be loved. But in
pitying Soames, readers incline, perhaps, to animus against
Irene: After all, they think, he wasn't a bad fellow, it
wasn't his fault; she ought to have forgiven him, and so on!
"Let the dead Past bury its dead" would be a better saying
if the Past ever died. The persistence of the Past is one
of those tragi-comic blessings which each new age denies,
coming cocksure on to the stage to mouth its claim to a
perfect novelty.
The figure of Irene, never, as the reader may possibly have
observed, present, except through the senses of other
characters, is a concretion of disturbing Beauty impinging
on a possessive world.
She turned back into the drawing-room; but in a minute came
out, and stood as if listening. Then she came stealing up
the stairs, with a kitten in her arms. He could see her
face bent over the little beast, which was purring against
her neck. Why couldn't she look at him like that?
But though the impingement of Beauty and the claims of
Freedom on a possessive world are the main prepossessions of
the Forsyte Saga, it cannot be absolved from the charge of
embalming the upper-middle class.
When a Forsyte was engaged, married, or born, the Forsytes
were present; when a Forsyte died—but no Forsyte had
as yet died; they did not die; death being contrary to their
principles, they took precautions against it, the
instinctive precautions of highly vitalized persons who
resent encroachments on their property.
"It's my opinion," he said unexpectedly, "that it's just as
well as it is."
The eldest by some years of all the Forsytes, she held a
peculiar position amongst them. Opportunists and egotists
one and all—though not, indeed, more so than their
neighbours—they quailed before her incorruptible
figure, and, when opportunities were too strong, what could
they do but avoid her!
"I'm bad," he said, pouting—"been bad all the week;
don't sleep at night. The doctor can't tell why. He's a
clever fellow, or I shouldn't have him, but I get nothing
out of him but bills."
There was little sentimentality about the Forsytes. In that
great London, which they had conquered and become merged in,
what time had they to be sentimental?
A moment passed, and young Jolyon, turning on his heel,
marched out at the door. He could hardly see; his smile
quavered. Never in all the fifteen years since he had first
found out that life was no simple business, had he found it
so singularly complicated.
As in all self-respecting families, an emporium had been
established where family secrets were bartered, and family
stock priced. It was known on Forsyte 'Change that Irene
regretted her marriage. Her regret was disapproved of. She
ought to have known her own mind; no dependable woman made
these mistakes.
Out of his other property, out of all the things he had
collected, his silver, his pictures, his houses, his
investments, he got a secret and intimate feeling; out of
her he got none.
Of all those whom this strange rumour about Bosinney and
Mrs. Soames reached, James was the most affected. He had
long forgotten how he had hovered, lanky and pale, in side
whiskers of chestnut hue, round Emily, in the days of his
own courtship. He had long forgotten the small house in the
purlieus of Mayfair, where he had spent the early days of
his married life, or rather, he had long forgotten the early
days, not the small house,—a Forsyte never forgot a
house—he had afterwards sold it at a clear profit of
four hundred pounds.
And those countless Forsytes, who, in the course of
innumerable transactions concerned with property of all
sorts (from wives to water rights)....
"I now move, 'That the report and accounts for the year 1886
be received and adopted.' You second that? Those in favour
signify the same in the usual way. Contrary—no.
Carried. The next business, gentlemen...." Soames smiled.
Certainly Uncle Jolyon had a way with him!
Forces regardless of family or class or custom were beating
down his guard; impending events over which he had no
control threw their shadows on his head. The irritation of
one accustomed to have his way was, roused against he knew
not what.
"We are, of course, all of us the slaves of property, and I
admit that it's a question of degree, but what I call a
'Forsyte' is a man who is decidedly more than less a slave
of property. He knows a good thing, he knows a safe thing,
and his grip on property—it doesn't matter whether it
be wives, houses, money, or reputation—is his hall-
mark."—"Ah!" murmured Bosinney. "You should patent
the word."—"I should like," said young Jolyon, "to
lecture on it: 'Properties and quality of a Forsyte': This
little animal, disturbed by the ridicule of his own sort, is
unaffected in his motions by the laughter of strange
creatures (you or I). Hereditarily disposed to myopia, he
recognises only the persons of his own species, amongst
which he passes an existence of competitive tranquillity."
"My people," replied young Jolyon, "are not very extreme,
and they have their own private peculiarities, like every
other family, but they possess in a remarkable degree those
two qualities which are the real tests of a
Forsyte—the power of never being able to give yourself
up to anything soul and body, and the 'sense of property'."
An unhappy marriage! No ill-treatment—only that
indefinable malaise, that terrible blight which killed all
sweetness under Heaven; and so from day to day, from night
to night, from week to week, from year to year, till death
should end it.
The more I see of people the more I am convinced that they
are never good or bad—merely comic, or pathetic. You
probably don't agree with me!'
"Don't touch me!" she cried. He caught her wrist; she
wrenched it away. "And where may you have been?" he asked.
"In heaven—out of this house!" With those words she
fled upstairs.
It seemed to young Jolyon that he could hear her saying:
"But, darling, it would ruin you!" For he himself had
experienced to the full the gnawing fear at the bottom of
each woman's heart that she is a drag on the man she loves.
She had come back like an animal wounded to death, not
knowing where to turn, not knowing what she was doing.
"What do you mean by God?" he said; "there are two
irreconcilable ideas of God. There's the Unknowable
Creative Principle—one believes in That. And there's
the Sum of altruism in man naturally one believes in That."
She was such a decided mortal; knew her own mind so terribly
well; wanted things so inexorably until she got
them—and then, indeed, often dropped them like a hot
potato. Her mother had been like that, whence had come all
those tears. Not that his incompatibility with his
daughter was anything like what it had been with the first
Mrs. Young Jolyon. One could be amused where a daughter was
concerned; in a wife's case one could not be amused.
"Thank you for that good lie."
Love has no age, no limit; and no death.
Did Nature permit a Forsyte not to make a slave of what he
adored? Could beauty be confided to him? Or should she not
be just a visitor, coming when she would, possessed for
moments which passed, to return only at her own choosing?
'We are a breed of spoilers!' thought Jolyon, 'close and
greedy; the bloom of life is not safe with us. Let her come
to me as she will, when she will, not at all if she will
not. Let me be just her stand-by, her perching-place;
never-never her cage!'
....causing the animal to wake and attack his fleas; for
though he was supposed to have none, nothing could persuade
him of the fact.
"It's always worth while before you do anything to consider
whether it's going to hurt another person more than is
absolutely necessary."