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St. John Ervine: “Whatever of joy and grief he has had in life has
been closely retained, and the reticence characteristic of the English
people ... is most clearly to be observed in Mr. Galsworthy.... How
often have we observed in our relationships that some garrulous person,
constantly engaged in egotistical conversation, contrives to conceal
knowledge of himself from us, while some silent friend, with lips
tightly closed, most amazingly gives himself away. One looks at Mr.
Galsworthy’s handsome, sensitive face, and is immediately aware of
tightened lips!... But the lips are not tightened because of things
done to him, but because of things done to others.” Mr. Galsworthy,
in a personal letter: “The fact is I cannot answer your questions.
I must leave my philosophy to my work generally, or rather, to what
people can make out of that work. The habit of trying to tabloid
one’s convictions, or lack of convictions, is a pretty fatal one;
as I have found to my distaste and discredit.” He conducts his own
cross-examination, in new books, new plays. He acknowledges, with quiet
discontent, the claims upon his sense of loyalty of a dog, a jailbird,
two “star-crossed lovers,” the wife of a possessive Forsyte, a De Levis
unjustly used. His pen moves, with a bold stroke, across the paper;
another secret is let out; his lips tighten. He is serene and indignant
and completely happy.
Why not? “My experience tells me this: An artist who is by accident
of independent means can, if he has talent, give the Public what he,
the artist, wants, and sooner or later the public will take whatever
he gives it, at his own valuation.” And he speaks of such artists as
able to “sit on the Public’s head and pull the Public’s beard, to use
the old Sikh saying.” Nothing else is worth while--for an artist. “The
artist has got to make a stand against being exploited.” But if the
artist should exploit himself, or anything more human or individual
than that impersonal entity, the Public, Mr. Galsworthy’s mouth would
become grim again; his loyalty would be forfeited, I think. There might
be a larger cause, but his concern would be with the other fellow. And
however hard you might press him for a verdict, he would bring in only
a recommendation for mercy.
iii
The Galsworthys have been in Devonshire as far back as records
go--“since the flood--of Saxons, at all events,” as John Galsworthy
once put it. His mother came of a family named Bartleet, whose county
for many centuries was Worcestershire. The boy, John, was born in
1867 at Coombe, in Surrey. “From the first,” continues the anonymous
but authorised sketch I am quoting, “his salient characteristics were
earnestness and tenacity. Not surprisingly brilliant, he was sure and
steady; his understanding, not notably quick, was notably sound. At
Harrow from 1881-1886 he did well in work and games. At New College,
Oxford, 1886-1889, he graduated with an Honour degree in Law. After
some further preparation he was called to the bar (Lincoln’s Inn) in
1890. It was natural he should have taken up the law, since his father
had done so. ‘I read,’ he says, ‘in various chambers, practised almost
not at all, and disliked my profession thoroughly.’
“In these circumstances he began to travel. His father, a successful
and unusual man in both character and intellect, was ‘not in a position
to require his son to make money’; his son, therefore, travelled,
off and on, for nearly two years, going, amongst other places, to
Russia, Canada, British Columbia, Australia, New Zealand, the Fiji
Islands, and South Africa. On a sailing-ship voyage between Adelaide
and the Cape he met and became a fast friend with the novelist Joseph
Conrad, then still a sailor. We do not know whether this friendship
influenced Galsworthy in becoming a writer; indeed, we believe that
he has somewhere said that it did not. But Galsworthy did take to
writing, published his first novel, _Jocelyn_, in 1899, _Villa Rubein_
in 1900, _A Man of Devon and Other Stories_ in 1901.” _Jocelyn_ has
been dropped from the list of Galsworthy’s works, _Villa Rubein_ was
revised in 1909, _The Island Pharisees_, a satire of English weaknesses
which appeared in 1904, was revised four years later; and it was not
until the publication of _The Man of Property_ in 1906 that our author
succeeded in sitting on the Public’s head and twining his fingers
firmly into the Public’s whiskers.
This was the first volume of the then-unplanned _Forsyte Saga_ and it
led Conrad, who had two years previously dedicated to Galsworthy what
remains his greatest novel (_Nostromo_), to write an article in which
he said:
“The foundation of Mr. Galsworthy’s talent, it seems to me, lies in
a remarkable power of ironic insight combined with an extremely keen
and faithful eye for all the phenomena on the surface of the life he
observes. These are the purveyors of his imagination, whose servant
is a style clear, direct, sane, illumined by a perfectly unaffected
sincerity. It is the style of a man whose sympathy with mankind is too
genuine to allow him the smallest gratification of his vanity at the
cost of his fellow-creatures ... sufficiently pointed to carry deep
his remorseless irony and grave enough to be the dignified vehicle of
his profound compassion. Its sustained harmony is never interrupted by
those bursts of cymbals and fifes which some deaf people acclaim for
brilliance. Before all it is a style well under control, and therefore
it never betrays this tender and ironic writer into an odious cynicism
of laughter and tears.
“From laboriously collected information, I am led to believe that
most people read novels for amusement. This is as it should be. But
whatever be their motives, I entertain towards all novel-readers the
feelings of warm and respectful affection. I would not try to deceive
them for worlds. Never! This being understood, I go on to declare, in
the peace of my heart and the serenity of my conscience, that if they
want amusement they shall find it between the covers of this book. They
shall find plenty of it in this episode in the history of the Forsytes,
where the reconciliation of a father and son, the dramatic and
poignant comedy of Soames Forsyte’s marital relations, and the tragedy
of Bosinney’s failure are exposed to our gaze with the remorseless
yet sympathetic irony of Mr. Galsworthy’s art, in the light of the
unquenchable fire burning on the altar of property. They shall find
amusement, and perhaps also something more lasting--if they care for
it. I say this with all the reserves and qualifications which strict
truth requires around every statement of opinion. Mr. Galsworthy will
never be found futile by anyone, and never uninteresting by the most
exacting.”
Twelve years after the appearance of _The Man of Property_, in the
volume _Five Tales_ (1918), was included a long short story, _Indian
Summer of a Forsyte_. The year 1920 saw publication of the novel, _In
Chancery_, and another long short story, _Awakening_; and the following
year brought the novel, _To Let_. These five units, separately in the
order named or together in the same chronological order in the thick
volume called _The Forsyte Saga_, compose a record of three generations
of an English family which has very justly been compared to the Esmonds
of Thackeray. The Forsytes and their associates and connections are
indeed “intensely real as individuals--real in the way that the Esmonds
were real; symbolic in their traits, of a section of English society,
and reflecting in their lives the changing moods of England in these
years.” The motif is clearly expressed by certain words of young Jolyon
Forsyte in _The Man of Property_:
“‘A Forsyte is not an uncommon animal. There are hundreds among the
members of this club. Hundreds out there in the streets; you meet
them wherever you go!... We are, of course, all of us 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 hallmark.... “Property 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
and habitats of his own species, amongst which he passes an existence
of competitive tranquillity”.... They are half England, and the better
half, too, the safe half, the three-per-cent half, the half that
counts. It’s their wealth and security that makes everything possible;
makes your art possible, makes literature, science, even religion,
possible. Without Forsytes, who believe in none of these things, but
turn them all to use, where should we be?’”
One of Galsworthy’s severest critics, St. John Ervine, calls _The
Forsyte Saga_ “his best work,” and breaks the force of many strictures
to declare: “The craftsmanship of _To Let_ is superb--this novel is,
perhaps, the most technically-correct book of our time--but its human
value is even greater than its craftsmanship. In a very vivid fashion,
Mr. Galsworthy shows the passing of a tradition and an age. He leaves
Soames Forsyte in lonely age, but he does not leave him entirely
without sympathy; for this muddleheaded man, unable to win or to keep
affection on any but commercial terms, contrives in the end to win the
pity and almost the love of the reader who has followed his varying
fortunes through their stupid career. The frustrate love of Fleur and
Jon is certainly one of the tenderest things in modern fiction.”
iv
Grove Lodge, The Grove, Hampstead, London, N. W. 3, is the residence
of Mr. and Mrs. Galsworthy; if you have occasion to telephone, call
Hampstead 3684. The approach to the house is described by Carlton Miles
in the Theatre Magazine (December, 1922):
“The Galsworthys live at the bottom of a long, rambling lane called The
Grove, in that part of Hampstead that looks calmly down on the crowded
chimneypots of northwestern London. To reach the house you must climb
a steep hill from the underground station and pass the stone building
in which Du Maurier wrote _Peter Ibbetson_ and to whose memory it bears
a tablet. A few minutes’ walk in one direction and you are in Church
Row with the historic cemetery in which Du Maurier and Beerbohm Tree
rest side by side. Follow the Grove walk and you arrive on Hampstead
Heath, black with thousands of workers on Bank Holiday, overlooking the
little row of cottages where Leigh Hunt and his followers established
their ‘Vale of Health.’ But, having passed the Du Maurier home, you
turn fairly to your left, descend a winding pathway that takes you by
the Admiral’s House--designated by large signs--erected 159 years ago
by an aged commander who built his home in three decks and mounted it
with guns. The guns have vanished but the Admiral’s House still is one
of the sights of Hampstead.
“At the end of the lane a small grilled iron gate shuts off the world
from a green yard and a low white house, whose rambling line suggests
many passageways and sets of rooms. A sheltered, secluded spot, the
place above all others where Galsworthy should live. Peace has been
achieved in five minutes’ walk from the noisy station. ‘The Inn of
Tranquillity.’
“A turn down a long hallway, up a short flight of steps--a bright,
flower-decked livingroom, a tea table, a dark-eyed, low-voiced hostess,
a clasping of hand by host and a bark you interpret as cautious
approval from Mark, the sheepdog, lying on the hearth rug. Mark is
named for one of Galsworthy’s characters”--Mark Lennan in _The Dark