An unusual piece to say the least. Apparently a mocking of upper crust society and their need to 'do something' about the lower classes......at least i think it was a farce of sorts. But what to 'do'? A pair of households; 2 sisters who married 2 brothers, and the maternal father lives in one house. One household has the father/father-in-law, and a childless sexless married pair, one an artist, the other a writer; the other houses the other couple with a daughter. And of course there is a young country girl who modeled for a painting by the artist sister, and she proceeds to throw somewhat structured lives into a complete tailspin.......all the while the father/father-in-law is obsessively writing a giant tome - "The Book of Universal Brotherhood". Not sure i got all of the significance of that, but the story seemed disjointed otherwise in that i could never tell who the real story was about...which household? Eventually it becomes clear, but only after what seemed like effort on my part. Plenty of talk about the plight of the underclasses, but not a whole lot in the way of having any idea what to do or how to help, if in fact help was even needed or wanted. It did keep my interest for the most part, and my favorite part was how Galsworthy seemed to humanize animals, particularly Hilary's dog, and shared their 'thoughts' & 'opinions' on what was going on....typically at the end of a chapter. But that need to sign off each chapter with a quirky little thought also began to feel tedious... This is my first Galsworthy, and this was certainly one of his earlier works. Ii am planning on reading the Nobel Prize winning Forsyte Saga, and will assume the cohesion of purpose is more clear than in this one. ( )

I've been trying for a while but it just isn't coming alive for me. Maybe later.