Foursyte Saga - The Man of Property (1)

John Galsworthy
The Man of Property
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.
The man of property
Synopsis
This episode covers the building of the house to the first moment of Forsyte family crisis . As it opens, Soames and Bosinney ride in a horse cart out to Robin Hill , where Soames is thinking of building a house. Soames is looking at cheaper sites lower on the hill, but Bosinney finds the perfect spot: at the top. The view is lovely, and even Soames is moved by it. He takes the site. Irene and June tell Bosinney, who's working on a design, about how much they dislike Soames. Irene tells Bosinney to put tall walls around the house, if he wishes to please its owner . June retorts that Soames loves to show off. Irene still hasn't officially been told by Soames.
Aunt Anne is old and bedridden. She hears the new from Forsyte 'Change, and tells Aunt Hester to warn Soames to be very very careful.
We find Soames ranting at Irene about something or other fairly unpleasant. He doesn't like June much. He gets the news about the house out under cover of the burst of irritation. She doesn't react. He clearly expected a reaction, and asks her if she heard. She already knew. She tells him that if he wants to know what she wants, he should ask her. Soames storms off. Irene reacts after he leaves, wondering what she's going to do.
Bosinney has finished the plans of the house. He presents them to a puzzled Soames. Soames knows about painting, but not about architecture. All this talk about regularity is all very well, but won't it look like a barrack? Won't it be cold ? Irene can't stand the cold! Bosinney explains. Eventually Soames consents.
The building of the house proceeds over the winter . Soames visits the site often. He looks happy . Bosinney talks to him about the color of tiles and this and that. He wants to consult with Irene, whom he finds artistic. He has plans to see a play with June. ("Coming to our place to meet her, I suppose ," says Soames in the novel , reflecting that Bosinney was always hanging around their house.) Bosinney does visit them. He walks over to Irene, who's playing the piano , and tells her that he doesn't flirt : if he sees something to admire, he admires it openly. Meaning that he admires her. Soames walks in and interrupts them, unknowing, with talk about the accounts of the house, which seem over budget . Irene sharply rebukes him for talking business in her drawing room , and Soames apologizes. She tells him to go off and change. He does so. Irene and Bosinney are alone again. June arrives for dinner , and creeps up on them unseen. She overhears some conversation that makes her suspicious. Her unchaperoned evening at the theater with Bosinney is ruined by her jealousy and his complete distraction.
Irene goes on a drive with Uncle Swithin, old " four -in-hand" Forsyte. They drive to see the house, which Swithin approves of. Bosinney settles him in a chair with a bottle of champagne. Swithin naps. Bosinney and Irene go on a walk in the trees below the house, where they embrace. They are lovers. On the drive back home, Swithin nearly gets into an accident with another carriage. His horses bolt. "Don't worry , you hang on, I'll get you home," he says to Irene. "I don't care if I never get home!" she says to him. He's impressed.
The only consistently warm and loving relationship in Soames's life is with his sister Winifred. He clearly shares affection with his father , but can't show it. With Winifred, he can show it. While Irene is off on a drive with Swithin, Soames listens sympathetically to Winifred's latest tale of financial misbehavior from Dartie. He starts to tell Winifred about his own troubles, but is interrupted by Irene's arrival home. She's flushed, excited, happy. Winifred comments on how lovely she looks and how unfair it is on other women . Soames says nothing, but looks stricken. He knows that excitement is not for him.
Meanwhile , on the other side of the Park at Timothy's, Swithin is already telling the story to the suitably shocked and titillated Aunts Juley and Hester. He shouldn't wonder if Bosinney was sweet on Mrs. Soames! He tells of catching him "slobbering" on her handkerchief. Swithin is just as captivated by Irene as Bosinney was, as Hester drily comments.Upstairs, the maid Smither tries to wake Aunt Anne, but fails. Aunt Anne is dead. (The crisis has struck deep at the root of the Forsytes: the most primal property-- a man's wife -- has been threatened.)