Gilbert Murray on John Galsworthy

“Pity for the unfortunate is, indeed, the main emotion roused by most of Galsworthy's works, but the only thing which really sweeps him away is mere sympathy with young love and beauty. Here, too, he never pretends that his young lovers have any especially admirable qualities; they long and they suffer, and that is enough.”

“The novels are remarkable for a very sensitive and exact observation of life as well as for purity of style. By temperament and perhaps also by his artistic conscience Galsworthy avoided many appeals to a reader's sympathy which seemed to him not consistent with objective truth. He belonged to no political party and professed to have no political convictions.”