Part 5
Take, for example, the scene in _The Man of Property_, when Irene returns to her husband, after having for the first time met Bosinney as a lover:
“He hardly recognised her. She seemed on fire, so deep and rich the colour of her cheeks, her eyes, her lips, and of the unusual blouse she wore. She was breathing fast and deep, as though she had been running, and with every breath perfume seemed to come from her hair, and from her body, like perfume from an opening flower.... He lifted his finger towards her breast, but she dashed his hand aside. ‘Don’t touch me!’ she cried. He caught her wrist; she wrenched it away. ‘And where have you been?’ he asked. ‘In heaven—out of this house!’ With those words she fled upstairs.... And Soames stood motionless. What prevented him from following her? Was it that, with the eyes of faith, he saw Bosinney looking down from that high window in Sloane Street, straining his eyes for yet another glimpse of Irene’s vanished figure, cooling his flushed face, dreaming of the moment when she flung herself on his breast—the scent of her still in the air around and the sound of her laugh that was like a sob?”
Next to a sense of situation Galsworthy must be granted a sense of atmosphere. This is due to the extraordinary sensitiveness he brings into his work, as distinct from penetration.
“Strong sunlight was falling on that little London garden, disclosing its native shadowiness; streaks and smudges such as Life smears over the faces of those who live too consciously. The late perfume of the lilac came stealing forth into the air faintly smeethed with chimney-smoke. There was brightness but no glory, in that little garden; scent, but no strong air blown across golden lakes of buttercups, from seas of springing clover, or the wind-silver of young wheat; music, but no full choir of sound, no hum.”
This passage from _Fraternity_ shows Galsworthy’s peculiar grasp of subtleties, those pseudo-expressions of emotion in Nature, which only the sensitive can find in their less obvious aspects. For the more obvious aspects, he has not so much attention. He deals little with storms and furies, with nature as a power. Nature to him is rather an influence, a thing of crafty workings; and he loves above all others hours of pale sunlight, faint dawn, or, more still, twilight languid and hushed, full of troubled perfumes:
“All things waited. The creatures of night were slow to come forth after that long bright summer’s day, watching for the shades of the trees to sink deeper and deeper into the now chalk-white water; watching for the chalk-white face of the sky to be masked with velvet. The very black plumed trees themselves seemed to wait in suspense for the grape-bloom of night. All things stared, wan in that hour of passing day—all things had eyes wistful and unblessed.”[1]
Footnote 1:
_The Dark Flower._
In the matter of style, Galsworthy is not a purist. One finds a split infinitive spoiling a procession of beautiful words, and one occasionally loses patience over a squad of panting verbless sentences all beginning with “And.” But he has a gift worth more than grammatical perfection, and that is a real sense of words. In their combinations, contrasts, and values, he marshals them with a poet’s strategy. He loves those words which hold their meanings as soldiers their weapons; one sees him apportioning the place of honour in a sentence, ranking the subordinates. He is so absolute a craftsman that we see in his occasional lapses more of a deliberate disregard than ignorance, and certainly nothing of the slipshod.
His dialogue in the plays is masterly—not always so effective in the novels. He is at his best in the dialogue of the lower classes. Sometimes, even in the plays, the conversation of his “gentlefolk” is apt to be stilted or to drag. On the other hand, the speech of the poor is always both spontaneous and significant. He has a wonderful power of economy in words. Throughout the plays, and in the most memorable dialogues in the novels, there is not a word too much, and yet there is nothing jerky or scrappy in the general impression.
Galsworthy is not a writer who owes much to outside influence. The first thought of “influence” in his case calls up ideas of French and Russian literature, but it would be surer to say that the resemblance is due to French and Russian qualities in the author’s outlook and state of mind than to discipleship either unconscious or deliberate.
Certainly he has that infinite pity, almost reverence, for suffering which characterises Russian ideas. But the same pity and reverence are not expressed in the large, straightforward manner of Tolstoy or Dostoevsky, but with Gallic subtlety and irony, recalling Flaubert. The writer with whom he has greatest affinity, to whom he may be said to be to a certain extent indebted, is Turguenev. In Turguenev we see the meeting ground of French and Russian art. There is the breadth, the tenderness, the mysticism of the Slav, mingling with the Frenchman’s sense of humour and sense of form. Every writer who sets store on form must expect to be credited with French influences. English art is essentially naïve in technique. Galsworthy has few, if any, English affinities. But, on the other hand, he has anglicised the foreign influences. The Russian pity is shorn of its mysticism, the French irony of its gaiety. These two combinations are characteristic of the countries of their origin, and Galsworthy splits them, choosing the pity and the irony, leaving the mysticism and the gaiety—thus asserting both his personality and his race.
Galsworthy is a pessimist—not in the spirit of fire and revolt, but in the spirit of an artist, sad, rather hopeless, and compassionate. Everywhere he sees ills—the trampling of the weak and poor, the conflict of instinct and civilisation, the pariahdom of the enlightened, the tyranny of unimaginativeness, hypocrisy and greed. He suggests no remedy—in fact, he insists continually on the difficulty of finding any remedy which shall be at once permanent and adequate—he just exposes the sore, and shows at the same time his burning pity for it, kindling our own.
But if he realises with painful vividness the evil and sorrow of life, and if a certain tired hopelessness and dislike of interference keep him from dreaming a brighter future, his eyes are not blind to beauty, to tenderness, and charm. Though his fine characters are almost always in revolt, though his beauty is always softened with pathos, his rare humour twisted with satire, we must acknowledge that he has a true sense of the splendour, the loveliness, and the fun of life. He sees them, so to speak, through a mist of tears, but he does not miss them altogether. It is because he is so much more than a social reformer, because he is an artist and a sensitive, that he cannot glibly set down remedies for the world’s wrongs. The genuine reformer is never content with pointing out the evils of a system, he has an improving plan. Galsworthy only shows us the shadows, with the lights that lie beside them, not those lights which shall scatter them at last. He is an artist, and the artist’s vision is not of the future, but of to-day. [Blank Page]
A SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF JOHN GALSWORTHY’S PRINCIPAL WRITINGS
[The date is given of the first edition of each book. “New edition” signifies a revision of text, change of format or transference to a different publisher.]
[A] From the Four Winds [stories] (_Unwin_). 1897.
[A] Jocelyn (_Duckworth_). 1898.
[A] Villa Rubein (_Duckworth_). 1900.
[A] A Man of Devon [and other stories] (_Blackwood_). 1901.
The Island Pharisees (_Heinemann_). 1904. New edition, 1908.
The Man of Property (_Heinemann_). 1906. New editions: 1907. (_Hodder and Stoughton_). 1911. (_Heinemann_). 1915.
The Country House (_Heinemann_). 1907. New edition, 1911.
A Commentary (_Richards_). 1908. New edition (_Duckworth_). 1910.
Fraternity (_Heinemann_). 1908.
Plays. Volume I. [The Silver Box; Joy; Strife] (_Duckworth_). 1909.
Villa Rubein [and other stories] (_Duckworth_). 1909. New edition, 1911. [This contains the stories previously issued in the two volumes enumerated above, “Villa Rubein” and “A Man of Devon.”]
The Silver Box [separate issue] (_Duckworth_). 1910.
Joy [separate issue] (_Duckworth_). 1910.
Strife [separate issue] (_Duckworth_). 1910.
Justice [play] (_Duckworth_). 1910.
A Motley (_Heinemann_). 1910.
The Patrician (_Heinemann_). 1911.
The Little Dream [play] (_Duckworth_). N.D. [1911.]
The Pigeon [play] (_Duckworth_). 1912.
Moods, Songs and Doggerels (Heinemann). 1912.
The Inn of Tranquillity: Studies and Essays (_Heinemann_). 1912.
The Eldest Son [play] (_Duckworth_). 1912.
Plays. Volume II. [The Eldest Son; The Little Dream; Justice] (_Duckworth_). 1912.
The Fugitive [play] (_Duckworth_). 1913.
The Dark Flower (_Heinemann_). 1913.
The Mob [play] (_Duckworth_). 1914.
Plays. Volume III. [The Fugitive; The Pigeon; The Mob] (_Duckworth_). 1914.
Some Slings and Arrows from John Galsworthy. Selected by Elsie E. Morton (_Elkin Mathews_). 1914.
Memories [an illustrated reprint of a single study from “The Inn of Tranquillity”] (_Heinemann_). 1914.
The Little Man, and other Satires (_Heinemann_). 1915.
A Bit o’ Love [play] (_Duckworth_). 1915.
The Freelands (_Heinemann_). 1915.
Footnote A:
These four books were written under the pseudonym “John Sinjohn.”
AMERICAN BIBLIOGRAPHY
The Island Pharisees (_Putnam_). 1904. New edition, 1908.
The Man of Property (_Putnam_). 1906.
The Country House (_Putnam_). 1907. New edition (_Scribner_). 1914.
Villa Rubein (_Putnam_). 1908.
A Commentary (_Putnam_). 1908.
Fraternity (_Putnam_). 1909.
Plays: First Series (_Putnam_). 1909.
Joy [play] (_Scribner_). 1910.
A Motley (_Scribner_). 1910.
Justice [play] (_Scribner_). 1910.
The Patrician (_Scribner_). 1911.
The Little Dream [play] (_Scribner_). 1911.
The Pigeon [play] (_Scribner_). 1912.
Moods, Songs and Doggerels (_Scribner_). 1912.
The Eldest Son [play] (_Scribner_). 1912.
The Inn of Tranquillity (_Scribner_). 1912.
Plays: Second Series (_Scribner_). 1913.
The Fugitive [play] (_Scribner_). 1913.
The Dark Flower (_Scribner_). 1913.
The Mob [play] (_Scribner_). 1914.
Plays: Third Series (_Scribner_). 1914.
Memories [an illustrated reprint of a single study from “The Inn of Tranquillity”] (_Scribner_). 1914.
The Little Man, and other Satires (_Scribner_). 1915.
A Bit o’ Love [play] (_Scribner_). 1915.
The Freelands (_Scribner_). 1915.
INDEX
_About Censorship_, 93 _Abracadabra_, 96
Barclay, Florence, 10 Barker, Granville, 18 Bennett, Arnold, 10, 12 _Bit o’ Love, A_, 16, 37, 44–47
Caine, Hall, 10 _Caste_, 34 _Commentary, A_, 88–90, 97 Conrad, Joseph, 10, 12, 15 Corelli, Marie, 10 _Country House, The_, 56, 63–68, 82, 83
_Dark Flower, The_, 15, 54, 56, 78–81, 84, 109 Davies, H. H., 18 Dostoevsky, 110
_Eldest Son, The_, 26, 27, 33–34, 37, 49 _Fisher of Men, A_, 90 Flaubert, 111 _Fraternity_, 55, 56, 69–74, 83, 85, 89, 102, 108 _Freelands, The_, 56, 81–85 _Fugitive, The_, 26, 35–37, 102
_Grand Jury, The_, 93
_Hall Marked_, 96 Houghton, Stanley, 18 _Housewife, The_, 96
_Inn of Tranquillity, The_, 88, 91–94, 95 _Island Pharisees, The_, 56, 57, 58, 102
Jones, H. A., 18 _Joy_, 26, 37–41, 49, 81 _Justice_, 23–26, 37–48, 102 _Justice_ (in _A Commentary_), 88
Kipling, 12
_Little Dream, The_, 15, 47, 50, 51, 98 _Little Man, The_, 88, 94–97
_Man of Devon, A_, 16, 86 _Man of Property, The_, 56, 58–63, 69, 82, 83, 84, 87, 102, 106 Masefield, John, 18 Maugham, Somerset, 18 _Memories_, 93 _Mob, The_, 37, 41–43 _Moods, Songs and Doggerels_, 16, 98, 99 _Mother, A_, 89, 91 _Motley, A_, 88, 90–91, 94, 97
Novelist’s Allegory, A, 92
_Once More_, 91
_Patrician, The_, 16, 55, 56, 74–77, 83, 103 _Pigeon, The_, 47–50 _Plain Man, The_, 96
_Riding in Mist_, 16, 93
_Salvation of a Forsyte, The_, 87 _Silver Box, The_, 26–33, 34, 35, 37, 94, 102 Shaw, Bernard, 18, 19, 102 _Some Platitudes Concerning the Drama_, 93, 101 _Street Lamps_, 98, 99 _Strife_, 21, 22, 24, 26, 35, 37, 42, 48, 94 _Studies in Extravagance_, 95
_That Old-Time Place_, 93 Tolstoy, 110 Turguenev, 111
Ultima Thule, 97
_Villa Rubein and Other Stories_, 15, 86
Wells, H. G., 10, 12 _Wind in the Rocks_, 91, 92 _Writer, The_, 95
Transcriber’s Note
Errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, and are noted here. The references are to the page and line in the original. The following issues should be noted, along with the resolutions.
36.19 though[t] it is spoilt by a riot of symbolism Removed. 51.18 So has it been with love.[”] Added. 82.19 young gener[er]ation Removed.