John Galsworthy

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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'." ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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! ”