Whether it ought to, or no, is beside the point; because in fact
it never does. And where Irene seems hard and cruel, as in the Bois de
Boulogne, or the Goupenor Gallery, she is but wisely realistic--knowing
that the least concession is the inch which precedes the impossible, the
repulsive ell.
A criticism one might pass on the last phase of the Saga is the
complaint that Irene and Jolyon those rebels against property--claim
spiritual property in their son Jon. But it would be hypercriticism,
as the tale is told. No father and mother could have let the boy marry
Fleur without knowledge of the facts; and the facts determine Jon, not
the persuasion of his parents. Moreover, Jolyon's persuasion is not
on his own account, but on Irene's, and Irene's persuasion becomes a
reiterated: "Don't think of me, think of yourself!" That Jon, knowing
the facts, can realise his mother's feelings, will hardly with justice
be held proof that she is, after all, a Forsyte.
But though the impingement of Beauty and the claims of Freedom on a
possessive world are the main prepossessions of the Forsyte Saga, it
cannot be absolved from the charge of embalming the upper-middle class.
As the old Egyptians placed around their mummies the necessaries of a
future existence, so I have endeavoured to lay beside the figures of
Aunts Ann and Juley and Hester, of Timothy and Swithin, of Old Jolyon
and James, and of their sons, that which shall guarantee them a little
life here-after, a little balm in the hurried Gilead of a dissolving
"Progress.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25