The Forsyte Saga - Volume 1

Something in his face and attitude touched young Jolyon. He knew what

suffering was like, and this man looked as if he were suffering.

He got up and touched his arm.

Bosinney started, but exhibited no sign of embarrassment on seeing who

it was.

Young Jolyon sat down.

"I haven't seen you for a long time," he said. "How are you getting on

with my cousin's house?"

"It'll be finished in about a week."

"I congratulate you!"

"Thanks--I don't know that it's much of a subject for congratulation."

"No?" queried young Jolyon; "I should have thought you'd be glad to get

a long job like that off your hands; but I suppose you feel it much as I

do when I part with a picture--a sort of child?"

He looked kindly at Bosinney.

"Yes," said the latter more cordially, "it goes out from you and there's

an end of it. I didn't know you painted."

"Only water-colours; I can't say I believe in my work."

"Don't believe in it? There--how can you do it? Work's no use unless you

believe in it!"

"Good," said young Jolyon; "it's exactly what I've always said.

By-the-bye, have you noticed that whenever one says 'Good,' one always

adds 'it's exactly what I've always said'! But if you ask me how I do

it, I answer, because I'm a Forsyte."

"A Forsyte! I never thought of you as one!"

"A Forsyte," replied young Jolyon, "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!"

"And how do you tell them, may I ask?" said Bosinney.

"By their sense of property. A Forsyte takes a practical--one might say

a commonsense--view of things, and a practical view of things is based

fundamentally on a sense of property. A Forsyte, you will notice, never

gives himself away."

"Joking?"

Young Jolyon's eye twinkled.

"Not much. As a Forsyte myself, I have no business to talk. But I'm a

kind of thoroughbred mongrel; now, there's no mistaking you: You're

as different from me as I am from my Uncle James, who is the perfect

specimen of a Forsyte. His sense of property is extreme, while you have

practically none. Without me in between, you would seem like a different

species. I'm the missing link. We are, of course, all of us the 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 hall-mark."