A Room with a View

by E.M. Forster

It is so difficult—at least, I find it difficult—to understand people who speak the truth.”

He seems to see good in every one. No one would take him for a clergyman.”

“One doesn’t come to Italy for niceness,” was the retort; “one comes for life.

Pull out from the depths those thoughts that you do not understand, and spread them out in the sunlight and know the meaning of them.

The kingdom of music is not the kingdom of this world; it will accept those whom breeding and intellect and culture have alike rejected.

Like every true performer, she was intoxicated by the mere feel of the notes: they were fingers caressing her own; and by touch, not by sound alone, did she come to her desire.

“If Miss Honeychurch ever takes to live as she plays, it will be very exciting both for us and for her.”

A rebel she was, but not of the kind he understood—a rebel who desired, not a wider dwelling-room, but equality beside the man she loved. For Italy was offering her the most priceless of all possessions—her own soul.

Life is easy to chronicle, but bewildering to practice, and we welcome “nerves” or any other shibboleth that will cloak our personal desire.

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