SOURCE: "'I'm Not Such a Fool as I Seem'," in John Galsworthy's Life and Art: An Alien's Fortress, Macmillan, 1987, pp. 114-52.

Gindin is an American educator and critic. In the following excerpt, he surveys the plots and major themes of Galsworthy's short stories.

Reaction to Galsworthy's Death:

When on 31 January 1933 John Galsworthy died, he was indisputably the head of his profession. A month previously he had been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. After refusing a knighthood years earlier, he had in 1929 been made a member of the Order of Merit, the most prized of all the rewards in the gift of the Sovereign. He had been almost for twelve years the first President of the Founding Centre of International PEN, the organization that brought together writers from all parts of the world. . . . It was only natural that a Memorial Service should be held for him in Westminster...