The Forsyte Saga - Volume 1

Jolyon stood in the narrow hall at Broadstairs, inhaling that odour

of oilcloth and herrings which permeates all respectable seaside

lodging-houses. On a chair--a shiny leather chair, displaying its

horsehair through a hole in the top left-hand corner--stood a black

despatch case. This he was filling with papers, with the Times, and a

bottle of Eau-de Cologne. He had meetings that day of the 'Globular Gold

Concessions' and the 'New Colliery Company, Limited,' to which he was

going up, for he never missed a Board; to 'miss a Board' would be one

more piece of evidence that he was growing old, and this his jealous

Forsyte spirit could not bear.

His eyes, as he filled that black despatch case, looked as if at any

moment they might blaze up with anger. So gleams the eye of a schoolboy,

baited by a ring of his companions; but he controls himself, deterred by

the fearful odds against him. And old Jolyon controlled himself,

keeping down, with his masterful restraint now slowly wearing out, the

irritation fostered in him by the conditions of his life.

He had received from his son an unpractical letter, in which by rambling

generalities the boy seemed trying to get out of answering a plain

question. 'I've seen Bosinney,' he said; 'he is not a criminal. The

more I see of people the more I am convinced that they are never good or

bad--merely comic, or pathetic. You probably don't agree with me!'

Old Jolyon did not; he considered it cynical to so express oneself; he

had not yet reached that point of old age when even Forsytes, bereft of

those illusions and principles which they have cherished carefully

for practical purposes but never believed in, bereft of all corporeal

enjoyment, stricken to the very heart by having nothing left to hope

for--break through the barriers of reserve and say things they would

never have believed themselves capable of saying.

Perhaps he did not believe in 'goodness' and 'badness' any more than

his son; but as he would have said: He didn't know--couldn't tell;

there might be something in it; and why, by an unnecessary expression of

disbelief, deprive yourself of possible advantage?

Accustomed to spend his holidays among the mountains, though (like a

true Forsyte) he had never attempted anything too adventurous or too

foolhardy, he had been passionately fond of them. And when the wonderful

view (mentioned in Baedeker--'fatiguing but repaying')--was disclosed to

him after the effort of the climb, he had doubtless felt the existence

of some great, dignified principle crowning the chaotic strivings, the

petty precipices, and ironic little dark chasms of life. This was as

near to religion, perhaps, as his practical spirit had ever gone.