In the third place, Galsworthy’s psychology is profound—impregnable. One simple characterization will serve to illustrate: he describes a man’s face as having the candour of one at heart a child—“that simple candour of those who have never known how to seek adventures of the mind, and have always sought adventures of the body.”
As to the lesson of The Dark Flower—its philosophy, its “moral”—I can only say that it hasn’t any such thing; that is, while it’s full to the brim of philosophy, it doesn’t attempt to force a philosophy upon you. It offers you the truth about a human being and lets it go at that—which seems to be the manner of not a few who have written greatly. For the other sort of thing, go to any second-rate novelist you happen to admire; he’ll give you characters who have a hard time of it and tell you just where they’re right and where they’re wrong. I can see how you feel you’re getting more for your money.
I can’t help feeling that everything Galsworthy has done has had its special function in making The Dark Flower possible. The sociology of Fraternity, the passionate pleading of Justice and Strife, the incomparable emotional experiments of A Commentary, the intellectuality of The Patrician—all these have contributed to the noble simplicities and the noble beauty of The Dark Flower.
The Garden
My heart shall be thy garden. Come, my own,
Into thy garden; thine be happy hours
Among my fairest thoughts, my tallest flowers,
From root to crowning petal thine alone.
Thine is the place from where the seeds are sown
Up to the sky enclosed, with all its showers.