Status Updates From The Forsyte Saga Complete N...

The Man of Property, Chapter 1.

Sheer brilliance. The writing stands the test of time as indeed does the original TV Serial from 1967 (I think)

And the day was silent well-nigh to breathlessness.

Sir Timothy was again staring at the Goya.
‘Family portrait?’ he said.
‘No,’ said Michael; ‘it’s a Goya.’
‘Deuce it is! Goy is Jewish for Christian. Female Christian – what?’
‘No, sir. Name of the Spanish painter.’
‘No idea there were any except Murillo and Velasquez...’

Suspicion had been dawning on Michael for years that its appearances were deceptive; that members of Parliament, theatre-goers, trotty little ladies with dresses tight blown about trotty little figures, plethoric generals in armchairs, pettish and petted poets, parsons in pulpits, posters in the street – above all, the Press, were not representative of the national disposition. [Prior to general strike, 1926]

For so old a man of the world Soames was singularly unaware how in that desirable sphere, called Society, every one is slandered daily, and no bones broken; slanderers and slandered dining and playing cards together with the utmost good feeling and the intention of reslandering each other the moment they are round the corner.

Four novels and two novellas read; five novels and some 'interludes' (novellas) to go...

There was a thing they called psycho-analysis, which so far as he could understand attributed people’s action not to what they ate at breakfast, or the leg they got out of bed with, as in the good old days, but to some shock they had received in the remote past and entirely forgotten. The subconscious mind! Fads! Fads and microbes!