The Forsyte Saga - Complete

The Project BookishMall.com EBook of The Forsyte Saga, Complete, by John Galsworthy This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project BookishMall.com License included with this eBook or online at www.BookishMall.com Title: The Forsyte Saga, Complete Author: John Galsworthy Last Updated: March 12, 2009 Release Date: June 14, 2006 [EBook #4397] Language: English Character set encoding: ASCII *** START OF THIS PROJECT BookishMall.com EBOOK THE FORSYTE SAGA, COMPLETE *** Produced by David Widger

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FORSYTE SAGA

Complete

By John Galsworthy

[ED. NOTE: The spelling conforms to the original: "s's" instead of our "z's"; and "c's" where we would have "s's"; and "...our" in colour and flavour; many interesting double consonants; etc.]

Contents

PREFACE: THE MAN OF PROPERTY PART I CHAPTER I—'AT HOME' AT OLD JOLYON'S CHAPTER II—OLD JOLYON GOES TO THE OPERA CHAPTER III—DINNER AT SWITHIN'S CHAPTER IV—PROJECTION OF THE HOUSE CHAPTER V—A FORSYTE MENAGE CHAPTER VI—JAMES AT LARGE CHAPTER VII—OLD JOLYON'S PECCADILLO CHAPTER VIII—PLANS OF THE HOUSE CHAPTER IX—DEATH OF AUNT ANN PART II CHAPTER I—PROGRESS OF THE HOUSE CHAPTER II—JUNE'S TREAT CHAPTER III—DRIVE WITH SWITHIN CHAPTER IV—JAMES GOES TO SEE FOR HIMSELF CHAPTER V—SOAMES AND BOSINNEY CORRESPOND CHAPTER VI—OLD JOLYON AT THE ZOO CHAPTER VII—AFTERNOON AT TIMOTHY'S CHAPTER VIII—DANCE AT ROGER'S CHAPTER IX—EVENING AT RICHMOND CHAPTER X—DIAGNOSIS OF A FORSYTE CHAPTER XI—BOSINNEY ON PAROLE CHAPTER XII—JUNE PAYS SOME CALLS CHAPTER XIII—PERFECTION OF THE HOUSE CHAPTER XIV—SOAMES SITS ON THE STAIRS PART III CHAPTER I—MRS. MACANDER'S EVIDENCE CHAPTER II—NIGHT IN THE PARK CHAPTER III—MEETING AT THE BOTANICAL CHAPTER IV—VOYAGE INTO THE INFERNO CHAPTER V—THE TRIAL CHAPTER VI—SOAMES BREAKS THE NEWS CHAPTER VII—JUNE'S VICTORY CHAPTER VIII—BOSINNEY'S DEPARTURE CHAPTER IX—IRENE'S RETURN THE FORSYTE SAGA—VOLUME II INDIAN SUMMER OF A FORSYTE I II III IV IN CHANCERY PART 1 CHAPTER I—AT TIMOTHY'S CHAPTER II—EXIT A MAN OF THE WORLD CHAPTER III—SOAMES PREPARES TO TAKE STEPS CHAPTER IV—SOHO CHAPTER V—JAMES SEES VISIONS CHAPTER VI—NO-LONGER-YOUNG JOLYON AT HOME CHAPTER VII—THE COLT AND THE FILLY CHAPTER VIII—JOLYON PROSECUTES TRUSTEESHIP CHAPTER IX—VAL HEARS THE NEWS CHAPTER X—SOAMES ENTERTAINS THE FUTURE CHAPTER XI—AND VISITS THE PAST CHAPTER XII—ON FORSYTE 'CHANGE CHAPTER XIII—JOLYON FINDS OUT WHERE HE IS CHAPTER XIV—SOAMES DISCOVERS WHAT HE WANTS PART II CHAPTER I—THE THIRD GENERATION CHAPTER II—SOAMES PUTS IT TO THE TOUCH CHAPTER III—VISIT TO IRENE CHAPTER IV—WHERE FORSYTES FEAR TO TREAD CHAPTER V—JOLLY SITS IN JUDGMENT CHAPTER VI—JOLYON IN TWO MINDS CHAPTER VII—DARTIE VERSUS DARTIE CHAPTER VIII—THE CHALLENGE CHAPTER IX—DINNER AT JAMES' CHAPTER X—DEATH OF THE DOG BALTHASAR CHAPTER XI—TIMOTHY STAYS THE ROT CHAPTER XII—PROGRESS OF THE CHASE CHAPTER XIII—'HERE WE ARE AGAIN!' CHAPTER XIV—OUTLANDISH NIGHT PART III CHAPTER I—SOAMES IN PARIS CHAPTER II—IN THE WEB CHAPTER III—RICHMOND PARK CHAPTER IV—OVER THE RIVER CHAPTER V—SOAMES ACTS CHAPTER VI—A SUMMER DAY CHAPTER VII—A SUMMER NIGHT CHAPTER VIII—JAMES IN WAITING CHAPTER IX—OUT OF THE WEB CHAPTER X—PASSING OF AN AGE CHAPTER XI—SUSPENDED ANIMATION CHAPTER XII—BIRTH OF A FORSYTE CHAPTER XIII—JAMES IS TOLD CHAPTER XIV—HIS AWAKENING TO LET PART I I.—ENCOUNTER II.—FINE FLEUR FORSYTE III.—AT ROBIN HILL IV.—THE MAUSOLEUM V.—THE NATIVE HEATH VI.—JON VII.—FLEUR VIII.—IDYLL ON GRASS IX. GOYA X.—TRIO XI.—DUET XII.—CAPRICE PART II I.—MOTHER AND SON II.—FATHERS AND DAUGHTERS III.—MEETINGS IV.—IN GREEN STREET V.—PURELY FORSYTE AFFAIRS VI.—SOAMES' PRIVATE LIFE VII.—JUNE TAKES A HAND VIII.—THE BIT BETWEEN THE TEETH IX.—THE FAT IN THE FIRE X.—DECISION XI.—TIMOTHY PROPHESIES PART III I.—OLD JOLYON WALKS II.—CONFESSION III.—IRENE IV.—SOAMES COGITATES V.—THE FIXED IDEA VI.—DESPERATE VII.—EMBASSY VIII.—THE DARK TUNE IX.—UNDER THE OAK-TREE X.—FLEUR'S WEDDING XI.—THE LAST OF THE OLD FORSYTES

Volumes

Volume 1.  The Man of Property

Volume 2.  Indian Summer of a Forsyte, and In Chancery

Volume 3.  Awakening, and To Let

THE MAN OF PROPERTY

TO MY WIFE:

I DEDICATE THE FORSYTE SAGA IN ITS ENTIRETY,
BELIEVING IT TO BE OF ALL MY WORKS THE LEAST
UNWORTHY OF ONE WITHOUT WHOSE ENCOURAGEMENT,
SYMPATHY AND CRITICISM I COULD NEVER HAVE
BECOME EVEN SUCH A WRITER AS I AM.

PREFACE:

"The Forsyte Saga" was the title originally destined for that part of it which is called "The Man of Property"; and to adopt it for the collected chronicles of the Forsyte family has indulged the Forsytean tenacity that is in all of us. The word Saga might be objected to on the ground that it connotes the heroic and that there is little heroism in these pages. But it is used with a suitable irony; and, after all, this long tale, though it may deal with folk in frock coats, furbelows, and a gilt-edged period, is not devoid of the essential heat of conflict. Discounting for the gigantic stature and blood-thirstiness of old days, as they have come down to us in fairy-tale and legend, the folk of the old Sagas were Forsytes, assuredly, in their possessive instincts, and as little proof against the inroads of beauty and passion as Swithin, Soames, or even Young Jolyon. And if heroic figures, in days that never were, seem to startle out from their surroundings in fashion unbecoming to a Forsyte of the Victorian era, we may be sure that tribal instinct was even then the prime force, and that "family" and the sense of home and property counted as they do to this day, for all the recent efforts to "talk them out."

So many people have written and claimed that their families were the originals of the Forsytes that one has been almost encouraged to believe in the typicality of an imagined species. Manners change and modes evolve, and "Timothy's on the Bayswater Road" becomes a nest of the unbelievable in all except essentials; we shall not look upon its like again, nor perhaps on such a one as James or Old Jolyon. And yet the figures of Insurance Societies and the utterances of Judges reassure us daily that our earthly paradise is still a rich preserve, where the wild raiders, Beauty and Passion, come stealing in, filching security from beneath our noses. As surely as a dog will bark at a brass band, so will the essential Soames in human nature ever rise up uneasily against the dissolution which hovers round the folds of ownership.

"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.

But no Age is so new as that! Human Nature, under its changing pretensions and clothes, is and ever will be very much of a Forsyte, and might, after all, be a much worse animal.

Looking back on the Victorian era, whose ripeness, decline, and 'fall-of' is in some sort pictured in "The Forsyte Saga," we see now that we have but jumped out of a frying-pan into a fire. It would be difficult to substantiate a claim that the case of England was better in 1913 than it was in 1886, when the Forsytes assembled at Old Jolyon's to celebrate the engagement of June to Philip Bosinney. And in 1920, when again the clan gathered to bless the marriage of Fleur with Michael Mont, the state of England is as surely too molten and bankrupt as in the eighties it was too congealed and low-percented. If these chronicles had been a really scientific study of transition one would have dwelt probably on such factors as the invention of bicycle, motor-car, and flying-machine; the arrival of a cheap Press; the decline of country life and increase of the towns; the birth of the Cinema. Men are, in fact, quite unable to control their own inventions; they at best develop adaptability to the new conditions those inventions create.

But this long tale is no scientific study of a period; it is rather an intimate incarnation of the disturbance that Beauty effects in the lives of men.

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.

One has noticed that readers, as they wade on through the salt waters of the Saga, are inclined more and more to pity Soames, and to think that in doing so they are in revolt against the mood of his creator. Far from it! He, too, pities Soames, 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!

And, taking sides, they lose perception of 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. Whether it ought to, or no, is beside the point; because in fact it never does. And where Irene seems hard and cruel, as in the Bois de Boulogne, or the Goupenor Gallery, she is but wisely realistic—knowing that the least concession is the inch which precedes the impossible, the repulsive ell.

A criticism one might pass on the last phase of the Saga is the complaint that Irene and Jolyon those rebels against property—claim spiritual property in their son Jon. But it would be hypercriticism, as the tale is told. No father and mother could have let the boy marry Fleur without knowledge of the facts; and the facts determine Jon, not the persuasion of his parents. Moreover, Jolyon's persuasion is not on his own account, but on Irene's, and Irene's persuasion becomes a reiterated: "Don't think of me, think of yourself!" That Jon, knowing the facts, can realise his mother's feelings, will hardly with justice be held proof that she is, after all, a Forsyte.

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. As the old Egyptians placed around their mummies the necessaries of a future existence, so I have endeavoured to lay beside the figures of Aunts Ann and Juley and Hester, of Timothy and Swithin, of Old Jolyon and James, and of their sons, that which shall guarantee them a little life here-after, a little balm in the hurried Gilead of a dissolving "Progress."

If the upper-middle class, with other classes, is destined to "move on" into amorphism, here, pickled in these pages, it lies under glass for strollers in the wide and ill-arranged museum of Letters. Here it rests, preserved in its own juice: The Sense of Property. 1922.

THE MAN OF PROPERTY

by JOHN GALSWORTHY

"........You will answer The slaves are ours....." —Merchant of Venice.

TO EDWARD GARNETT

PART I

CHAPTER I—'AT HOME' AT OLD JOLYON'S

Those privileged to be present at a family festival of the Forsytes have seen that charming and instructive sight—an upper middle-class family in full plumage. But whosoever of these favoured persons has possessed the gift of psychological analysis (a talent without monetary value and properly ignored by the Forsytes), has witnessed a spectacle, not only delightful in itself, but illustrative of an obscure human problem. In plainer words, he has gleaned from a gathering of this family—no branch of which had a liking for the other, between no three members of whom existed anything worthy of the name of sympathy—evidence of that mysterious concrete tenacity which renders a family so formidable a unit of society, so clear a reproduction of society in miniature. He has been admitted to a vision of the dim roads of social progress, has understood something of patriarchal life, of the swarmings of savage hordes, of the rise and fall of nations. He is like one who, having watched a tree grow from its planting—a paragon of tenacity, insulation, and success, amidst the deaths of a hundred other plants less fibrous, sappy, and persistent—one day will see it flourishing with bland, full foliage, in an almost repugnant prosperity, at the summit of its efflorescence.

On June 15, eighteen eighty-six, about four of the afternoon, the observer who chanced to be present at the house of old Jolyon Forsyte in Stanhope Gate, might have seen the highest efflorescence of the Forsytes.

This was the occasion of an 'at home' to celebrate the engagement of Miss June Forsyte, old Jolyon's granddaughter, to Mr. Philip Bosinney.