Bokelskere.no

'But you'll admit, sir, that the sense of property is dying out?'
'I should say increasing among those who have none.'

[...] well, Victorianism had gone! "Tell them to hold on!"
old Timothy had said. But to what were they to hold on in this modern
welter of the "democratic principle"? Why, even privacy was threatened!
And at the thought that privacy might perish, Soames pushed back his
teacup and went to the window. Fancy owning no more of Nature than the
crowd out there owned of the flowers and trees and waters of Hyde Park!
No, no! Private possession underlay everything worth having. The world
had slipped its sanity a bit, as dogs now and again at full moon slipped
theirs and went off for a night's rabbiting; but the world, like the
dog, knew where its bread was buttered and its bed warm, and would come
back sure enough to the only home worth having--to private ownership.
The world was in its second childhood for the moment, like old
Timothy--eating its titbit first!

If Soames had faith, it was in what he called 'English common sense' - or the power to have things, if not one way then another,

Youth only recognizes Age by fits and starts.

To say that Jon Forsyte accompanied his mother to Spain unwillingly would scarcely have been adequate. He went as a well-natured dog goes for a walk with its mistress, leaving a choice mutton-bone on the lawn.

The possessive instinct, which, so determinedly balked, was animating two members of the Forsyte family towards riddance of what they could no longer possess, was hardening daily in the British body politic.

One can't run with the hare and hunt with the hounds.

'What is your recipe for youth, Irene?
People who don’t live are wonderfully preserved.

‘Uncle Soames never misses a train,’ muttered Val, with his mouth full.
‘Why should I?’ Soames answered simply.

"Yes. Good-bye. Remember me to Uncle Timothy!" And, leaving a cold kiss on each forehead, whose wrinkles seemed to try and cling to his lips as if longing to be kissed away, he left them looking brightly after him--dear Soames, it had been so good of him to come to-day, when they were not feeling very ...!