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. Galsworthy's work is something very
pleasing. Since "A Man of Property," the idea that the creator of the
universe, or the Original Will, or whatever you like to call it or him,
made a grotesque fundamental mistake in the conception of our particular
planet, has apparently gained much ground in Mr. Galsworthy's mind. I hope
that this ground may slowly be recovered by the opposite idea. Anyhow, the
Forsyte is universal. We are all Forsytes, just as we are all Willoughby
Patternes, and this incontrovertible statement implies inevitably that Mr.
Galsworthy is a writer of the highest rank. I re-read "A Man of Property"
immediately after re-reading Dostoievsky's "Crime and Punishment," and
immediately before re-reading Bjoernson's "Arne." It ranks well with these
European masterpieces.

SUPPRESSIONS IN "DE PROFUNDIS"

[_21 July '10_]

Some time ago I pointed out (what was to me a new discovery) that certain
passages in the German translation of Oscar Wilde's "De Profundis" did not
exist in the original English version as printed; and I suggested that Mr.
Robert Ross, Oscar Wilde's faithful literary executor, should explain. He
has been good enough to do so. He informs me that the passages in question
were restored in the edition of "De Profundis" (the thirteenth) in Wilde's
Complete Works, issued by Messrs. Methuen to a limit