' They had shares in all sorts
of things, not as yet--with the exception of Timothy--in consols, for
they had no dread in life like that of 3 per cent. for their money.
They collected pictures, too, and were supporters of such charitable
institutions as might be beneficial to their sick domestics. From their
father, the builder, they inherited a talent for bricks and mortar.
Originally, perhaps, members of some primitive sect, they were now
in the natural course of things members of the Church of England, and
caused their wives and children to attend with some regularity the
more fashionable churches of the Metropolis. To have doubted their
Christianity would have caused them both pain and surprise. Some of them
paid for pews, thus expressing in the most practical form their sympathy
with the teachings of Christ.
Their residences, placed at stated intervals round the park, watched
like sentinels, lest the fair heart of this London, where their desires
were fixed, should slip from their clutches, and leave them lower in
their own estimations.
There was old Jolyon in Stanhope Place; the Jameses in Park Lane;
Swithin in the lonely glory of orange and blue chambers in Hyde Park
Mansions--he had never married, not he--the Soamses in their nest off
Knightsbridge; the Rogers in Prince's Gardens (Roger was that remarkable
Forsyte who had conceived and carried out the notion of bringing up his
four sons to a new profession.
Pages:
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41