Read books online » John Galsworthy

author - "John Galsworthy"

In our online library worldlibraryebooks.com you can read for free books of the author author - "John Galsworthy". All books are presented in full version without abbreviations. You can also read the abstract or a comment about the book.

he is smoking a cigarette.

LADY A. I've told the Dancys--she was in bed. And I got through toNewmarket, Charles, and Inspector Dede is coming like the wind on a motorcycle.

MARGARET. Did he say "like the wind," Adela? He must have imagination.Isn't this gorgeous? Poor little Ferdy!

WINSOR. [Vexed] You might take it seriously, Margaret; it's prettybeastly for us all. What time did you come up?

MARGARET. I came up with Adela. Am I suspected, Charles? Howthrilling!

WINSOR. Did you hear anything?

MARGARET. Only little Ferdy splashing.

WINSOR. And saw nothing?

MARGARET. Not even that, alas!

LADY A. [With a finger held up] Leste! Un peu leste! Oh! Here are theDancys. Come in, you two!

MABEL and RONALD DANCY enter. She is a pretty young woman withbobbed hair, fortunately, for she has just got out of bed, and is inher nightgown and a wrapper. DANCY is in his smoking jacket. Hehas a pale, determined face with high cheekbones, small, deep

retching out to himmy youthful foot:

"Isn't it awfully hard to do, Mr. Gessler?"

And his answer, given with a sudden smile from out of the sardonicredness of his beard: "Id is an Ardt!"

Himself, he was a little as if made from leather, with his yellowcrinkly face, and crinkly reddish hair and beard; and neat foldsslanting down his cheeks to the corners of his mouth, and hisguttural and one-toned voice; for leather is a sardonic substance,and stiff and slow of purpose. And that was the character of hisface, save that his eyes, which were grey-blue, had in them thesimple gravity of one secretly possessed by the Ideal. His elderbrother was so very like him--though watery, paler in every way, witha great industry--that sometimes in early days I was not quite sureof him until the interview was over. Then I knew that it was he, ifthe words, "I will ask my brudder," had not been spoken; and that, ifthey had, it was his elder brother.

When one grew old and wild and ran up bills, one someho

John Galsworthy was born at Kingston Hill in Surrey, England, the son of John and Blanche Bailey (née Bartleet) Galsworthy. His family was wealthy and well established, with a large estate in Kingston upon Thames that is now the site of three schools: Marymount International School, Rokeby Preparatory School, and Holy Cross Preparatory School. He attended Harrow and New College, Oxford, training as a barrister, and was called to the bar in 1890. However, he was not keen to begin practising law and instead travelled abroad to look after the family's shipping business. During these travels he met Joseph Conrad, then the first mate of a sailing-ship moored in the harbour of Adelaide, Australia, and the two future novelists became close friends. In 1895 Galsworthy began an affair with Ada Nemesis Pearson Cooper (1864–1956), the wife of his cousin Major Arthur Galsworthy. After her divorce ten years later, they married 23 September 1905 and stayed together until his death in 1933. Before their marriage, they often stayed clandestinely in a farmhouse called Wingstone in the village of Manaton on Dartmoor, Devon.[1] From 1908 he took out a long lease on part of the building and made it their regular second home until 1923.[1]

From the Four Winds, a collection of short stories, was Galsworthy's first published work in 1897. These and several subsequent works were published under the pen name John Sinjohn, and it would not be until The Island Pharisees (1904) that he would begin publishing under his own name, probably owing to the death of his father. His first full-length novel, Jocelyn was published in an edition of 750 under the name of John Sinjohn – he later refused to have it republished. His first play, The Silver Box (1906),[2] – in which the theft of a prostitute's purse by a rich 'young man of good family' is placed beside the theft of a silver cigarette case from the rich man's father's house by 'a poor devil', with very different repercussions[3] – became a success, and he followed it up with The Man of Property (1906), the first in the Forsyte trilogy. Although he continued writing both plays and novels, it was as a playwright that he was mainly appreciated at the time. Along with those of other writers of the time, such as George Bernard Shaw, his plays addressed the class system and social issues, two of the best known being Strife (1909) and The Skin Game (1920).

he is smoking a cigarette.

LADY A. I've told the Dancys--she was in bed. And I got through toNewmarket, Charles, and Inspector Dede is coming like the wind on a motorcycle.

MARGARET. Did he say "like the wind," Adela? He must have imagination.Isn't this gorgeous? Poor little Ferdy!

WINSOR. [Vexed] You might take it seriously, Margaret; it's prettybeastly for us all. What time did you come up?

MARGARET. I came up with Adela. Am I suspected, Charles? Howthrilling!

WINSOR. Did you hear anything?

MARGARET. Only little Ferdy splashing.

WINSOR. And saw nothing?

MARGARET. Not even that, alas!

LADY A. [With a finger held up] Leste! Un peu leste! Oh! Here are theDancys. Come in, you two!

MABEL and RONALD DANCY enter. She is a pretty young woman withbobbed hair, fortunately, for she has just got out of bed, and is inher nightgown and a wrapper. DANCY is in his smoking jacket. Hehas a pale, determined face with high cheekbones, small, deep

retching out to himmy youthful foot:

"Isn't it awfully hard to do, Mr. Gessler?"

And his answer, given with a sudden smile from out of the sardonicredness of his beard: "Id is an Ardt!"

Himself, he was a little as if made from leather, with his yellowcrinkly face, and crinkly reddish hair and beard; and neat foldsslanting down his cheeks to the corners of his mouth, and hisguttural and one-toned voice; for leather is a sardonic substance,and stiff and slow of purpose. And that was the character of hisface, save that his eyes, which were grey-blue, had in them thesimple gravity of one secretly possessed by the Ideal. His elderbrother was so very like him--though watery, paler in every way, witha great industry--that sometimes in early days I was not quite sureof him until the interview was over. Then I knew that it was he, ifthe words, "I will ask my brudder," had not been spoken; and that, ifthey had, it was his elder brother.

When one grew old and wild and ran up bills, one someho

John Galsworthy was born at Kingston Hill in Surrey, England, the son of John and Blanche Bailey (née Bartleet) Galsworthy. His family was wealthy and well established, with a large estate in Kingston upon Thames that is now the site of three schools: Marymount International School, Rokeby Preparatory School, and Holy Cross Preparatory School. He attended Harrow and New College, Oxford, training as a barrister, and was called to the bar in 1890. However, he was not keen to begin practising law and instead travelled abroad to look after the family's shipping business. During these travels he met Joseph Conrad, then the first mate of a sailing-ship moored in the harbour of Adelaide, Australia, and the two future novelists became close friends. In 1895 Galsworthy began an affair with Ada Nemesis Pearson Cooper (1864–1956), the wife of his cousin Major Arthur Galsworthy. After her divorce ten years later, they married 23 September 1905 and stayed together until his death in 1933. Before their marriage, they often stayed clandestinely in a farmhouse called Wingstone in the village of Manaton on Dartmoor, Devon.[1] From 1908 he took out a long lease on part of the building and made it their regular second home until 1923.[1]

From the Four Winds, a collection of short stories, was Galsworthy's first published work in 1897. These and several subsequent works were published under the pen name John Sinjohn, and it would not be until The Island Pharisees (1904) that he would begin publishing under his own name, probably owing to the death of his father. His first full-length novel, Jocelyn was published in an edition of 750 under the name of John Sinjohn – he later refused to have it republished. His first play, The Silver Box (1906),[2] – in which the theft of a prostitute's purse by a rich 'young man of good family' is placed beside the theft of a silver cigarette case from the rich man's father's house by 'a poor devil', with very different repercussions[3] – became a success, and he followed it up with The Man of Property (1906), the first in the Forsyte trilogy. Although he continued writing both plays and novels, it was as a playwright that he was mainly appreciated at the time. Along with those of other writers of the time, such as George Bernard Shaw, his plays addressed the class system and social issues, two of the best known being Strife (1909) and The Skin Game (1920).