"You talk of them," said Bosinney, "as if they were half England."

"They are," repeated young Jolyon, "half England, and the better half,
too, the safe half, the three per cent. half, the half that counts. It's
their wealth and security that makes everything possible; makes your art
possible, makes literature, science, even religion, possible. Without
Forsytes, who believe in none of these things, and habitats but turn them
all to use, where should we be? My dear sir, the Forsytes are the
middlemen, the commercials, the pillars of society, the cornerstones of
convention; everything that is admirable!"

"I don't know whether I catch your drift," said Bosinney, "but I fancy
there are plenty of Forsytes, as you call them, in my profession."

"Certainly," replied young Jolyon. "The great majority of architects,
painters, or writers have no principles, like any other Forsytes. Art,
literature, religion, survive by virtue of the few cranks who really
believe in such things, and the many Forsytes who make a commercial use
of them. At a low estimate, three-fourths of our Royal Academicians are
Forsytes, seven-eighths of our novelists, a large proportion of the
press. Of science I can't speak; they are magnificently represented in
religion; in the House of Commons perhaps more numerous than anywhere;
the aristocracy speaks for itself. But I'm not laughing. It is
dangerous to go against the majority and what a majority!" He fixed his
eyes on Bosinney: "It's dangerous to let anything carry you away--a
house, a picture, a--woman!"

They looked at each other.--And, as though he had done that which no
Forsyte did--given himself away, young Jolyon drew into his shell.
Bosinney broke the silence.

"Why do you take your own people as the type?" said he.

"My people," replied young Jolyon, "are not very extreme, and they have
their own private peculiarities, like every other family, but they
possess in a remarkable degree those two qualities which are the real
tests of a Forsyte--the power of never being able to give yourself up to
anything soul and body, and the 'sense of property'."

Bosinney smiled: "How about the big one, for instance?"

"Do you mean Swithin?" asked young Jolyon. "Ah! in Swithin there's
something primeval still. The town and middle-class life haven't
digested him yet. All the old centuries of farm work and brute force
have settled in him, and there they've stuck, for all he's so
distinguished."