A Room with a View

by E.M. Forster

Italy had quickened Cecil, not to tolerance, but to irritation.

Secrecy has this disadvantage: we lose the sense of proportion; we cannot tell whether our secret is important or not.

Mrs. Vyse managed to scrape together a dinner-party consisting entirely of the grandchildren of famous people.

The sadness of the incomplete—the sadness that is often Life, but should never be Art—throbbed in its disjected phrases, and made the nerves of the audience throb. Not

On the cornice of the wardrobe, the hand of an amateur had painted this inscription: “Mistrust all enterprises that require new clothes.”

“It is Fate that I am here,” persisted George. “But you can call it Italy if it makes you less unhappy.”

it reminded one of swimming in a salad.

“Come this way immediately,” commanded Cecil, who always felt that he must lead women, though knew not whither, and protect them, though he knew not against what.

she reflected that it is impossible to foretell the future with any degree of accuracy, that it is impossible to rehearse life.

“All right, mother—” “Don’t say ‘All right’ and stop. Go.”

One connected the landing window with depression.

Mrs. Honeychurch might have flamed out. She did not. She said: “Come here, old lady—thank you for putting away my bonnet—kiss me.” And, though nothing is perfect, Lucy felt for the moment that her mother and Windy Corner and the Weald in the declining sun were perfect.

So the grittiness went out of life. It generally did at Windy Corner. At the last minute, when the social machine was clogged hopelessly, one member or other of the family poured in a drop of oil.

Oh, these Honeychurches! Eggs, boilers, hydrangeas, maids—of such were their lives compact.

Life is easy to chronicle, but bewildering to practice,

“Have you ever talked to Vyse without feeling tired?”

She again desired a struggle, not a discussion.

For all his culture, Cecil was an ascetic at heart, and nothing in his love became him like the leaving of it.

he was only riding over to get some tea, to see his niece, and to observe whether Miss Honeychurch saw anything beautiful in the desire of two old ladies to visit Athens.

He had never fathomed Miss Bartlett. As he had put it to himself at Florence, “she might yet reveal depths of strangeness, if not of meaning.” But she was so unsympathetic that she must be reliable.

“I want more independence,” said Lucy lamely; she knew that she wanted something, and independence is a useful cry; we can always say that we have not got it.

Though life is very glorious, it is difficult.”

“‘Life’ wrote a friend of mine, ‘is a public performance on the violin, in which you must learn the instrument as you go along.’