In accordance with my habit of re-reading books which have uncommonly
interested me on first perusal, I have recently read again "A Man of
Property." Well, it stands the test. It is certainly the most perfect of
Mr. Galsworthy's novels up to now. Except for the confused impression
caused by the too rapid presentation of all the numerous members of the
Forsyte family at the opening, it has practically no faults. In
construction it is unlike any other novel that I know, but that is not to
say it has no constructive design--as some critics have said. It is merely
to say that it is original. There are no weak parts in the book, no places
where the author has stopped to take his breath and wipe his brow. The
tension is never relaxed. This is one of the two qualities without which a
novel cannot be first class and great. The other is the quality of sound,
harmonious design. Both qualities are exceedingly rare, and I do not know
which is the rarer. In the actual material of the book, the finest quality
is its extraordinary passionate cruelty towards the oppressors as
distinguished from the oppressed. That oppressors should be treated with
less sympathy than oppressed is contrary to my own notion of the ethics of
creative art, but the result in Mr.
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