nd old Jolyon controlled himself, keeping
down, with his masterful restraint now slowly wearing out, the irritation
fostered in him by the conditions of his life.

He had received from his son an unpractical letter, in which by rambling
generalities the boy seemed trying to get out of answering a plain
question. 'I've seen Bosinney,' he said; 'he is not a criminal. The
more I see of people the more I am convinced that they are never good or
bad--merely comic, or pathetic. You probably don't agree with me!'

Old Jolyon did not; he considered it cynical to so express oneself; he
had not yet reached that point of old age when even Forsytes, bereft of
those illusions and principles which they have cherished carefully for
practical purposes but never believed in, bereft of all corporeal
enjoyment, stricken to the very heart by having nothing left to hope
for--break through the barriers of reserve and say things they would
never have believed themselves capable of saying.

Perhaps he did not believe in 'goodness' and 'badness' any more than his
son; but as he would have said: He didn't know--couldn't tell; there
might be something in it; and why, by an unnecessary expression of
disbelief, deprive yourself of possible advantage?

Accustomed to spend his holidays among the mountains, though (like a true
Forsyte) he had never attempted anything too adventurous or too
foolhardy, he had been passionately fond of them. And when the wonderful
view (mentioned in Baedeker--'fatiguing but repaying')--was disclosed to
him after the effort of the climb, he had doubtless felt the existence of
some great, dignified principle crowning the chaotic strivings, the petty
precipices, and ironic little dark chasms of life. This was as near to
religion, perhaps, as his practical spirit had ever gone.

But it was many years since he had been to the mountains. He had taken
June there two seasons running, after his wife died, and had realized
bitterly that his walking days were over.

To that old mountain--given confidence in a supreme order of things he
had long been a stranger.

He knew himself to be old, yet he felt young; and this troubled him. It
troubled and puzzled him, too, to think that he, who had always been so
careful, should be father and grandfather to such as seemed born to
disaster. He had nothing to say against Jo--who could say anything
against the boy, an amiable chap?--but his position was deplorable, and
this busin