The Forsyte Saga - Volume 1

In Swithin's orange and light-blue dining-room, facing the Park, the

round table was laid for twelve.

A cut-glass chandelier filled with lighted candles hung like a giant

stalactite above its centre, radiating over large gilt-framed mirrors,

slabs of marble on the tops of side-tables, and heavy gold chairs with

crewel worked seats. Everything betokened that love of beauty so deeply

implanted in each family which has had its own way to make into Society,

out of the more vulgar heart of Nature. Swithin had indeed an impatience

of simplicity, a love of ormolu, which had always stamped him amongst

his associates as a man of great, if somewhat luxurious taste; and out

of the knowledge that no one could possibly enter his rooms without

perceiving him to be a man of wealth, he had derived a solid and

prolonged happiness such as perhaps no other circumstance in life had

afforded him.

Since his retirement from land agency, a profession deplorable in

his estimation, especially as to its auctioneering department, he had

abandoned himself to naturally aristocratic tastes.

The perfect luxury of his latter days had embedded him like a fly in

sugar; and his mind, where very little took place from morning till

night, was the junction of two curiously opposite emotions, a lingering

and sturdy satisfaction that he had made his own way and his own

fortune, and a sense that a man of his distinction should never have

been allowed to soil his mind with work.

He stood at the sideboard in a white waistcoat with large gold and onyx

buttons, watching his valet screw the necks of three champagne bottles

deeper into ice-pails. Between the points of his stand-up collar,

which--though it hurt him to move--he would on no account have had

altered, the pale flesh of his under chin remained immovable. His eyes

roved from bottle to bottle. He was debating, and he argued like this:

Jolyon drinks a glass, perhaps two, he's so careful of himself. James,

he can't take his wine nowadays. Nicholas--Fanny and he would

swill water he shouldn't wonder! Soames didn't count; these young

nephews--Soames was thirty-one--couldn't drink! But Bosinney?

Encountering in the name of this stranger something outside the range

of his philosophy, Swithin paused. A misgiving arose within him! It

was impossible to tell! June was only a girl, in love too! Emily (Mrs.

James) liked a good glass of champagne. It was too dry for Juley, poor

old soul, she had no palate. As to Hatty Chessman! The thought of this

old friend caused a cloud of thought to obscure the perfect glassiness

of his eyes: He shouldn't wonder if she drank half a bottle!