John Galsworthy

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A review of Forsytes, Pendyces and Others

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SOURCE: A review of Forsytes, Pendyces and Others, in New York Herald Tribune Books, November 3, 1935, p. 12.

[In the review below, Paterson terms the stories in Forsytes, Pendyces and Others "incisive analyses of the middle-class temperament. "]

Several of the items included in this final miscellany from the pen of John Galsworthy come under the head of unfinished business, including two plays never completed. There are also two more "dramatic pieces," one a "cut" from "Escape," the other a one-act squib. A number of short stories, all rather slight, a fantasy, a few prefaces and speeches, graceful compliments to fellow authors: and several chapters entitled "Danae," originally written as the beginning of The Country House, but discarded at the time, make up the lot. Their main interest is associational. One of the short stories, "The Doldrums," rescued from a volume long since out of print, was written in 1896, and contains in fiction form a souvenir of Galsworthy's first meeting with Joseph Conrad, when Galsworthy was a passenger aboard a ship on which Conrad was first officer, and both unknown to fame.

It is interesting to note what a strong impression Conrad made. Though in this short story he appears only as a commentator, one feels that nevertheless it was written about him. He is the most striking character, with his "brown, almond-shaped Slav eyes, the eyes of a man who has been many times to the edge of the world and looking over," the "cynical and mournful curve" of his mouth, his pointed beard, his accent, all somehow expressive of the cast of his mind. To a young man who saw, or thought he saw, a terrifying apparition, Galsworthy makes this fictional character drawn from Conrad say: "You are not to be pitied, you know, you are to be envied: a man does not often see these things." This is a curious confirmation, perhaps an anticipation, of Conrad's definition of his purpose as a writer, "to make you see."

The short story is otherwise insignificant. The "Danae" chapters contain some of Galsworthy's incisive analyses of the middle-class temperament, in which he excelled. This is specifically the second generation of the middle class, the sons of the men who had sufficient character and initiative, to get on in the world. The fathers may not have had very lofty aims, but they had decision and bold minds within the scope of their desires. The sons became either mild "liberals," or cagey bachelors about town, or sober householders, taking refuge in their family life as behind barricades, from the temptations of the world, the flesh and the devil. They were essentially timid souls. Here are perfect examples of the first two types: and they reveal themselves most fully in their attitude toward Danae Bellow, a careless feminine hedonist.

Gregory Vigil, the endowed idealist, "respected" Danae; he respected her far too much to pay her bills when she hinted she was hard up. He thought of her as "his good angel, keeping him from himself," that is, by sentimentalizing about her he dodged any dangers from other women. Giving her money would have "sullied his high conception of her." In fact, giving her anything whatever would have injured his delicate sensibilities. He just hung around, mooning over her.

George Forsyte, the man about town, was worried by Danae's attraction for him because "to George, born and bred to commercialism, this passion for a married woman, coming not in his first youth, was charged with the countless doubts and fears that hover around passion in a fundamentally commercial mind. . . . Was it worth it?—for a woman that you couldn't make out, that had something in her that beat you altogether? George's reason told him, No. He was putting his money on the wrong horse, and with all his might he tried to hedge his bets."

Galsworthy had his own sentimentalities, and his work was a little too "timely" to outlast his time long, but for the low-down on his own class, he should always be a valuable reference source. He had no mercy on those comfortable, cautious men he knew so well, the "men of property."

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