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92. JOHN GALSWORTHY. THE COUNTRY HOUSE. THE MAN OF PROPERTY.
FRATERNITY.
John Galsworthy is almost alone among modern writers in the possession
of a genius, which in the most exact sense of that admirable word, can
only be described as the genius of a gentleman. It is a style
singularly sensitive, a little vibrant perhaps sometimes, and so tense
as to become attenuated, but of a most rare and wistful beauty. His
humor which is his weakest point is a thing of almost feminine
perceptions but quaintly pliable, as the sense of humor in women often
is, to an odd strain of peevish extravagance.
The chivalrous nobility of Mr. Galsworthy's habitual mood is at once
the cause of certain fragilities and betrayals in the mass and weight
of his art and the cause of the indignant pity which evokes some of
his finest touches.
It seems to irritate his nerves almost to frenzy to contemplate the
shackles and fetters with which, whether in the domestic or social or
legal world, the free spirits of men and women are bound down and
imprisoned.
The touching figure of Mrs. Pendyce in the "Country House"--the tragic
figure of Irene Soames Forsyte in the "Man of Property"--the pitiful
figure of the little Model in "Fraternity"--have all something of the
same quality.
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