A MODERN COMEDY
John Galsworthy

A Modern Comedy is part of the Forsyte Chronicles (1886---1926), in which Galsworthy pictures the life of a large, upper middle-class family against a carefully detailed background of English life. Solid and very readable, this novel is important as a social document aside from its value as literature. The volume is composed of three long sections --- The White Monkey, The Silver Spoon, and Swan Song---originally published as separate novels, and two interludes. Galsworthy's social history is valuable as a record of the various currents of British life in the 1920's. 

Soames Forsyte was a member of the board of the Providential Premium Reassurance Society. Against his better judgment, the society had invested much of its holdings in foreign securities. Because the European exchange was so unstable, Soames insisted that the report to the stockholders be detailed. Not long afterward, Butterfield, a clerk in the P.P.R.S. office, overheard a conversation between Elderson, the manager, and a German. The German insisted that Elderson, who had received commissions on the society's investments in Germany, should see to it that the board made good any losses if the mark fell in value. Accused of bribery, Elderson denied the charge and dismissed Butterfield. When pressed, however, Elderson escaped to the continent. The stockholders were outraged that the board had permitted Elderson to get away. Although Soames explained that any early revelation of the manager's dishonesty would have been futile, he received very little support from his listeners. He resigned from the board. 

Michael Mont, Soames' son-in-law, was a publisher. When Butterfield lost his job with the P.P.R.S., Soames asked Michael to give the clerk employment. Butterfield prospered as a salesman of special editions. 

Michael's wife, Fleur, had been spoiled by her father. She was restless, passionate, and not in love with her husband. Wilfred Desert, an artist, was deeply in love with her, but she knew that he could provide only adventure, not love. Wilfred finally left the country for Arabia. For a time the relationship of Michael and Fleur appeared happier, and Fleur gave birth to a son, whom they named Christopher. 

Before she married Michael, Fleur had been in love with her cousin, Jon Forsyte, but because of a family feud she could not marry him. Jon had gone to America, where he fell in love with a Southern girl, Anne Wilmot, and married her. 

A year or so after Christopher's birth, Michael entered Parliament. To help her husband and to provide herself with diversion, Fleur entertained many prominent people. One night Soames overheard one of Fleur's guests, Marjorie Ferrar, speak of her as a snob. He asked Marjorie to leave the house. Fleur was impatient with her father for interfering, but she criticized Marjorie for creating an unpleasant scene. Marjorie demanded an apology. After an offer of settlement from Soames, Marjorie still insisted on the apology and took her suit into court, Soames and his lawyer managed to prove that Marjorie was a woman of irresponsible morals. Fleur won the case, but the victory brought her so many snubs from former friends that she was more unhappy than ever. 

Francis Wilmot, whose sister Anne had married Jon, arrived from America to see what England was like. He stayed for a time with Fleur and Michael but, having fallen in love with Marjorie Ferrar, he moved out after the unpleasantness between Marjorie and Fleur. Marjorie refused to marry him, however, and go to what she felt would be a dull life in America. Francis contracted pneumonia in a lonely hotel and would have died but for the kindliness of Fleur. He recovered and went back to America. 

Fleur, discontented with her life in London, persuaded Soames to take her on a trip around the world. Michael could not leave until the current session of Parliament had adjourned. He was fostering Foggartism --- a plan for a return to the land and for populating the dominions with the children of the British poor---and he felt that he must remain in London. It was arranged that he would meet Fleur and Soames in Vancouver five months later. Meanwhile, little Christopher would be in the care of his grandmother, Soames' wife. 

While in Washington, Fleur, Michael, and Soames stayed at the hotel where Jon Forsyte and his mother, Irene, were also staying. It was Soames' first sight of his divorced wife in many years. He kept discreetly in the background, however, and saw to it that Fleur did not encounter Jon. 

Back in London, with the Marjorie Ferrar affair almost forgotten, Fleur was eager for activity. When the general strike of 1926 began, she opened a canteen for volunteer workers. One day she saw Jon there. He had come over from France to work during the strike. Jon's conscience would not let him fall in love again with Fleur, but she managed to be near him as often as she could. After a single night together, Jon wrote that he could not see her again. 

Foggartism having met with high disfavor and unpopularity, Michael became interested in slum improvement. Fleur, still smarting from Jon's rebuff, established a country rest home for working girls. Michael's work had taught him that the poor would never have consented to part with their children, even though keeping them would always mean privation and suffering. He realized that he was well out of Foggartism. 

Soames, unhappy in an environment of post-war confusion and family unrest, spent more and more time among his collection of great paintings. One night, awakened by the odor of smoke, he discovered that his picture gallery was on fire. With the aid of his chauffeur, he managed to save many of his pictures by tossing them out the window. At last, when they could stay in the house no longer, they went outside, where Soames directed the firemen as well as he could. Then he saw that one of his heavily framed pictures was about to fall from the window above. He also saw that Fleur was deliberately standing where the frame would fall on her. He ran to push her out of the way, and received the blow himself. He died from exhaustion and from the injury. Fleur was further desolated because she knew that her own desire for death had killed her father. The death of Soames brought her to her senses, however. Michael was assured that her affair with Jon was over forever.