found the very place for your house."
Since then Swithin had dreamed, and old Jolyon died, beneath its
branches. And now, close to the swing, no-longer-young Jolyon often
painted there. Of all spots in the world it was perhaps the most sacred
to him, for he had loved his father.

Contemplating its great girth--crinkled and a little mossed, but not yet
hollow--he would speculate on the passage of time. That tree had seen,
perhaps, all real English history; it dated, he shouldn't wonder, from
the days of Elizabeth at least. His own fifty years were as nothing to
its wood. When the house behind it, which he now owned, was three
hundred years of age instead of twelve, that tree might still be standing
there, vast and hollow--for who would commit such sacrilege as to cut it
down? A Forsyte might perhaps still be living in that house, to guard it
jealously. And Jolyon would wonder what the house would look like coated
with such age. Wistaria was already about its walls--the new look had
gone. Would it hold its own and keep the dignity Bosinney had bestowed
on it, or would the giant London have lapped it round and made it into an
asylum in the midst of a jerry-built wilderness? Often, within and
without of it, he was persuaded that Bosinney had been moved by the
spirit when he built. He had put his heart into that house, indeed! It
might even become one of the 'homes of England'--a rare achievement for a
house in these degenerate days of building. And the aesthetic spirit,
moving hand in hand with his Forsyte sense of possessive continuity,
dwelt with pride and pleasure on his ownership thereof. There was the
smack of reverence and ancestor-worship (if only for one ancestor) in his
desire to hand this house down to his son and his son's son. His father
had loved the house, had loved the view, the grounds, that tree; his last
years had been happy there, and no one had lived there before him. These
last eleven years at Robin Hill had formed in Jolyon's life as a painter,
the important period of success. He was now in the very van of
water-colour art, hanging on the line everywhere. His drawings fetched
high prices. Specialising in that one medium with the tenacity of his
breed, he had 'arrived'--rather late, but not too late for a member of
the family which made a point of living for ever. His art had really
deepened and improved. In conformity with his position he had grown a
short fair beard, which was just