ACT I It is Ascension Day in a village of the West. In the lowpanelled hall-sittingroom of the BURLACOMBE'S farmhouse on thevillage green, MICHAEL STRANGWAY, a clerical collar round histhroat and a dark Norfolk jacket on his back, is playing theflute before a very large framed photograph of a woman, which isthe only picture on the walls. His age is about thirty-five hisfigure thin and very upright... more...

A PARTY AT WORSTED SKEYNES The year was 1891, the month October, the day Monday. In the dark outside the railway-station at Worsted Skeynes Mr. Horace Pendyce's omnibus, his brougham, his luggage-cart, monopolised space. The face of Mr. Horace Pendyce's coachman monopolised the light of the solitary station lantern. Rosy-gilled, with fat close-clipped grey whiskers and inscrutably pursed... more...

HALL-MARKED The scene is the sitting-room and verandah of HER bungalow. The room is pleasant, and along the back, where the verandahruns, it seems all window, both French and casement. There is adoor right and a door left. The day is bright; the timemorning. [HERSELF, dripping wet, comes running along the verandah,through the French window, with a wet Scotch terrier in herarms. She vanishes through the... more...

ACT I SCENE I The curtain rises on the BARTHWICK'S dining-room, large, modern, and well furnished; the window curtains drawn. Electric light is burning. On the large round dining-table is set out a tray with whisky, a syphon, and a silver cigarette-box. It is past midnight. A fumbling is heard outside the door. It is opened suddenly; JACK BARTHWICK seems to fall into the room. He stands holding by... more...

THE INN OF TRANQUILLITY Under a burning blue sky, among the pine-trees and junipers, the cypresses and olives of that Odyssean coast, we came one afternoon on a pink house bearing the legend: "Osteria di Tranquillita,"; and, partly because of the name, and partly because we did not expect to find a house at all in those goat-haunted groves above the waves, we tarried for contemplation. To the... more...

THE INN OF TRANQUILLITY Under a burning blue sky, among the pine-trees and junipers, the cypresses and olives of that Odyssean coast, we came one afternoon on a pink house bearing the legend: "Osteria di Tranquillita,"; and, partly because of the name, and partly because we did not expect to find a house at all in those goat-haunted groves above the waves, we tarried for contemplation. To the... more...

ACT I SCENE I The scene is a well-lighted, and large, oak-panelled hall, withan air of being lived in, and a broad, oak staircase. Thedining-room, drawing-room, billiard-room, all open into it; andunder the staircase a door leads to the servants' quarters. Ina huge fireplace a log fire is burning. There are tiger-skinson the floor, horns on the walls; and a writing-table againstthe wall opposite... more...

QUALITY I knew him from the days of my extreme youth, because he made my father's boots; inhabiting with his elder brother two little shops let into one, in a small by-street-now no more, but then most fashionably placed in the West End. That tenement had a certain quiet distinction; there was no sign upon its face that he made for any of the Royal Family—merely his own German name of Gessler... more...

ACT I SCENE I The curtain rises on the BARTHWICK'S dining-room, large,modern, and well furnished; the window curtains drawn.Electric light is burning. On the large round dining-table isset out a tray with whisky, a syphon, and a silvercigarette-box. It is past midnight. A fumbling is heard outside the door. It is opened suddenly;JACK BARTHWICK seems to fall into the room. He stands holdingby the... more...

PREFACE: "The Forsyte Saga" was the title originally destined for that part of it which is called "The Man of Property"; and to adopt it for the collected chronicles of the Forsyte family has indulged the Forsytean tenacity that is in all of us. The word Saga might be objected to on the ground that it connotes the heroic and that there is little heroism in these pages. But it is used... more...