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 beginning to grizzle, and hid his Forsyte chin; his brown face had lost the warped expression of his ostracised period--he looked, if anything, younger.
The loss of his wife in 1894 had been one of those domestic tragedies which turn out in the end for the good of all.

He had, indeed, loved her to the last, for his was an affectionate spirit, but she had become increasingly difficult: jealous of her step-daughter June, jealous even of her own little daughter Holly, and making ceaseless plaint that he could not love her, ill as she was, and 'useless to everyone, and better dead.' He had mourned her sincerely, but his face had looked younger since she died.

If she could only have believed that she made him happy, how much happier would the twenty years of their companionship have been! June had never really got on well with her who had reprehensibly taken her own mother's place; and ever since old Jolyon died she had been established in a sort of studio in London.