Howards End

by E.M. Forster

they passed on to the next point. It is the best—perhaps the only—way of dodging emotion. They were the average human article, and had they considered the note as a whole it would have driven them miserable or mad. Considered item by item, the emotional content was minimised, and all went forward smoothly.

we ought to die—neither as victim nor as fanatic, but as the seafarer who can greet with an equal eye the deep that he is entering, and the shore that he must leave.

they had grit as well as grittiness and she valued grit enormously.

Fraulein Mosebach, who had conceived the large and patriotic notion of winning back her cousins to the Fatherland by matrimony. England had played Paul Wilcox, and lost; Germany played Herr Forstmeister some one—Helen could not remember his name.

Paul Wilcox, the Best of England, apparently

Oxford is—Oxford; not a mere receptacle for youth, like Cambridge. Perhaps it wants its inmates to love it rather than to love one another;

Actual life is full of false clues and sign–posts that lead nowhere. With infinite effort we nerve ourselves for a crisis that never comes.

The most successful career must show a waste of strength that might have removed mountains, and the most unsuccessful is not that of the man who is taken unprepared, but of him who has prepared and is never taken.

Life is indeed dangerous, but not in the way morality would have us believe. It is indeed unmanageable, but the essence of it is not a battle. It is unmanageable because it is a romance, and its essence is romantic beauty.

Margaret hoped that for the future she would be less cautious, not more cautious, than she had been in the past.

month by month the roads smelt more strongly of petrol, and were more difficult to cross, and human beings heard each other speak with greater difficulty, breathed less of the air, and saw less of the sky.

who can explain Westminster Bridge Road or Liverpool Street in the morning—the city inhaling—or the same thoroughfares in the evening—the city exhaling her exhausted air?

He was not a fool—she had heard him expose Socialism—but true insight began just where his intelligence ended, and one gathered that this was the case with most millionaires.

Wow

I hope that for women, too, 'not to work' will soon become as shocking as 'not to be married' was a hundred years ago."

An Empire bores me, so far, but I can appreciate the heroism that builds it up. London bores me, but what thousands of splendid people are labouring to make London—"

one of the thousands who have lost the life of the body and failed to reach the life of the spirit.

London was beginning to illuminate herself against the night. Electric lights sizzled and jagged in the main thoroughfares, gas–lamps in the side streets glimmered a canary gold or green. The sky was a crimson battlefield of spring, but London was not afraid. Her smoke mitigated the splendour, and the clouds down Oxford Street were a delicately painted ceiling, which adorned while it did not distract.

his head disappeared like a pudding into a basin, the ears bending outwards at the touch of the curly brim.

In short, he might be given anything and everything so long as it was not the money itself.

"Why not give him the money itself? You’re supposed to have about thirty thousand a year." "Have I? I thought I had a million." "Wasn’t a million your capital? Dear me! we ought to have settled that. Still, it doesn’t matter. Whatever you’ve got, I order you to give as many poor men as you can three hundred a year each."

That’s an insane interest rate, isn’t it?

One was more beautiful and more lively, but "the Miss Schlegels" still remained a composite Indian god, whose waving arms and contradictory speeches were the product of a single mind.

you really MUST be careful in this uncharitable world. What does your brother say?" "I forget." "Surely he has some opinion?" "He laughs, if I remember correctly."

Tibby, the only sensible person in this story

We merely want a small house with large rooms, and plenty of them."

It’s the houses that are mesmerising me. I’ve no control over the saucy things. Houses are alive. No?"

It is the little things one bungles at. The big, real ones are nothing when they come."

"Here we fellows smoke." We fellows smoked in chairs of maroon leather. It was as if a motor–car had spawned. "Oh, jolly!" said Margaret, sinking into one of them.

Just as this thought entered Margaret’s brain, Mr. Wilcox did ask her to be his wife,

She stood in his drawing–room happy, and longing to give happiness.

Awwwww

he was there, they were all there that morning when I came down to breakfast, and saw that Paul was frightened—the man who loved me frightened and all his paraphernalia fallen, so that I knew it was impossible, because personal relations are the important thing for ever and ever, and not this outer life of telegrams and anger."

Ooooooooof

Love cannot understand this. He cannot comprehend another’s infinity; he is conscious only of his own—flying sunbeam, falling rose, pebble that asks for one quiet plunge below the fretting interplay of space and time. He knows that he will survive at the end of things, and be

For a sensitive woman she had steady nerves, and could bear with the incongruous and the grotesque;

Same?

Love was so unlike the article served up in books; the joy, though genuine was different; the mystery an unexpected mystery. For one thing, Mr. Wilcox still seemed a stranger.

Are you aware that Helen and I have walked alone over the Apennines, with our luggage on our backs?" "I wasn’t aware, and, if I can manage it, you will never do such a thing again."

why not?!

Now, the sea—" "High tide, yes." "Hoy toid"—from the promenading youths.

Love them

As they were going up by the side–paths, through some rhododendrons, Mr. Wilcox, who was in front, said "Margaret" rather huskily, turned, dropped his cigar, and took her in his arms.

She was startled, and nearly screamed, but recovered herself at once, and kissed with genuine love the lips that were pressed against her own.

Lol

He and Dolly are sitting in deckchairs, and their motor is regarding them placidly from its garage across the lawn. A short–frocked edition of Charles also regards them placidly; a perambulator edition is squeaking; a third edition is expected shortly. Nature is turning out Wilcoxes in this peaceful abode, so that they may inherit the earth.

If I marry, it will either be a man who’s strong enough to boss me or whom I’m strong enough to boss.

Charles, I ask you to stop." "Stopping’s no good," drawled Charles. "Isn’t it?" said Margaret, and jumped straight out of the car.

GO MADGE

if a man over twenty once loses his own particular job, it’s all over with him. I have seen it happen to others. Their friends gave them money for a little, but in the end they fall over the edge. It’s no good. It’s the whole world pulling.