Produced by David Widger QUOTES AND IMAGES FROM JOHN GALSWORTHY THE WORKS OF JOHN GALSWORTHY QUOTES Attack his fleas--though he was supposed to have none Dogs: with rudiments of altruism and a sense of God Don't hurt others more than is absolutely necessary Early morning does not mince words Era which had canonised hypocrisy Forgiven me; but she could never forget Health--He did not want it at such cost Is anything more pathetic than the faith of the young? Law takes a low view of human nature Let her come to me as she will, when she will, not at all if she will not Love has no age, no limit; and no death Never to see yourself as others see you Old men learn to forego their whims People who don't live are wonderfully preserved Perching-place; never--never her cage! Putting up a brave show of being natural Socialists: they want our goods Thank you for that good lie To seem to be respectable was to be You have to buy experience COURAGE COURAGE Is but a word, and yet, of words, The only sentinel of permanence; The ruddy watch-fire of cold winter days, We steal its comfort, lift our weary swords, And on. For faith--without it--has no sense; And love to wind of doubt and tremor sways; And life for ever quaking marsh must tread. Laws give it not; before it prayer will blush; Hope has it not; nor pride of being true; 'Tis the mysterious soul which never yields, But hales us on and on to breast the rush Of all the fortunes we shall happen through. And when Death calls across his shadowy fields-- Dying, it answers: "Here! I am not dead!" SOME FAVORITE PASSAGES The simple truth, which underlies the whole story, that where sex attraction is utterly and definitely lacking in one partner to a union, no amount of pity, or reason, or duty, or what not, can overcome a repulsion implicit in Nature. The tragedy of whose life is the very simple, uncontrollable tragedy of being unlovable, without quite a thick enough skin to be thoroughly unconscious of the fact. Not even Fleur loves Soames as he feels he ought to be loved. But in pitying Soames, readers incline, perhaps, to animus against Irene: After all, they think, he wasn't a bad fellow, it wasn't his fault; she ought to have forgiven him, and so on! "Let the dead Past bury its dead" would be a better saying if the Past ever died. The persistence of the Past is one of those tragi-comic blessings which each new age denies, coming cocksure on to the stage to mouth its claim to a perfect novelty. The figure of Irene, never, as the reader may possibly have observed, present, except through the senses of other characters, is a concretion of disturbing Beauty impinging on a possessive world.