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air, the other twin, James – the fat and the lean of it, old Jolyon called these brothers – like the bulky Swithin,
over six feet in height, but very lean, as though destined from his birth to strike a balance and maintain an
average, brooded over the scene with his permanent stoop, his grey eyes had an air of fixed absorption in some
secret worry, broken at intervals by a rapid, shifting scrutiny of surrounding facts; his cheeks, thinned by two
parallel folds, and a long, clearf-shaven upper lip, were framed within Dundreary¹ whiskers. In his hands he
turned and turned a piece of china. Not far off, listening to a lady in brown, his only son Soames, pale and well-
shaved, dark-haired, rather bald, had poked his chin up sideways, carrying his nose with that aforesaid
appearance of «sniff», as though despising an egg which he knew he could not digest. Behind him his cousin,
the tall George, son of the fifth Forsyte, Roger, had a Quilpish² look on his fleshy face, pondering one of his
sardonic jests.
Something inherent to the occasion had affected them all.
Seated in a row close to one another were three ladies – Aunts Ann, Hester (the two Forsyte maids), and
Juley (short for Julia), who not in first youth had so far forgotten herself as to marry Septimus Small, a man of
poor constitution. She had survived him for many years. With her elder and younger sister she lived now in the
house of Timothy, her sixth and youngest brother, on the Bayswater Road. Each of these ladies held fans in
their hands, and each with some touch of colour, some emphatic feather or brooch, testified to the solemnity of
the opportunity.
In the centre of the room, under the chandelier, as became a host, stood the head of the family, old Jolyon
himself. Eighty years of age, with his fine, white hair his dome-like forehead, his little, dark gray eyes, and an
immense white moustache, which drooped and spread below the level of his strong jaw, he had a patriarchal
look, and in spite of lean cheeks and hollows at his temples, seemed master of perennial youth. He held himself
extremely upright, and his shrewd, steady eyes had lost none of their clear shining. Thus he gave an impression
of superiority to the doubts and dislikes of smaller men. Having had his own way for innumerable years, he had
earned a prescriptive right to it. It would never had occurred to old Jolyon that it was necessary to wear a look
of doubt or of defiance.
Between him and the four other brothers who were present, James, Swithin, Nicholas, and Roger, there was
much difference, much similarity. In turns, each of these four brothers was very different from the other, yet
they, too, were alike.
Through the varying features and expressions of those five faces could be marked a certain steadfastness of
chin, underlying surface distinctions, marking a racial stamp, too prehistoric to trace, too remote and permanent
to discuss – the very hall-mark and guarantee of the family fortunes.
(From The Forsyte Saga, book 1, by John Galsworthy)
1
Dundreary whiskers – Lord Dundreary is the chief character in Tom Taylor's «Our American Cousin» (1858).
2
a Quilpish look – a mocking, wicked look. Daniel Quilp is a hideous dwarf, ferocious and cunning character in Dickens's «The
Old Curiosity Shop» who enjoys tormenting others.
At the top of the hill, they came face to face with the sun. It was a quarter of the way up, cut like a knife by
the treeless horizon. Down below them was a valley lying under a cover of mist that was rising slowly from the
earth. They could see several houses and farms, but most of them were so far away they were almost
indistinguishable in the mist. There was smoke rising from the chimney of the first house...
The sun came up above the horizon, fast and red. Streaks of gray clouds, like layers of woodsmoke, swam
across the face of it. Almost as quickly as it had risen, the sun shrank into a small fiery button that seared the
eyes until it was impossible to look at it any longer.
(From Man and woman, by Erskine Caldwell)