Works of E M Forster

by E. M. Forster

  “What does he say?”

  “Silly boy! He thinks he’s being dignified. He knew we should go off in the spring — he has known it for six months — that if mother wouldn’t give her consent we should take the thing into our own hands. They had fair warning, and now he calls it an elopement. Ridiculous boy— “

  “Signorino, domani faremo uno giro— “

  “But it will all come right in the end. He has to build us both up from the beginning again. I wish, though, that Cecil had not turned so cynical about women. He has, for the second time, quite altered. Why will men have theories about women? I haven’t any about men. I wish, too, that Mr. Beebe— “

  “You may well wish that.”

  “He will never forgive us — I mean, he will never be interested in us again. I wish that he did not influence them so much at Windy Corner. I wish he hadn’t — But if we act the truth, the people who really love us are sure to come back to us in the long run.”

  “Perhaps.” Then he said more gently: “Well, I acted the truth — the only thing I did do — and you came back to me. So possibly you know.” He turned back into the room. “Nonsense with that sock.” He carried her to the window, so that she, too, saw all the view. They sank upon their knees, invisible from the road, they hoped, and began to whisper one another’s names. Ah! it was worth while; it was the great joy that they had expected, and countless little joys of which they had never dreamt. They were silent.

  “Signorino, domani faremo— “

  “Oh, bother that man!”

  But Lucy remembered the vendor of photographs and said, “No, don’t be rude to him.” Then with a catching of her breath, she murmured: “Mr. Eager and Charlotte, dreadful frozen Charlotte. How cruel she would be to a man like that!”

  “Look at the lights going over the bridge.”

  “But this room reminds me of Charlotte. How horrible to grow old in Charlotte’s way! To think that evening at the rectory that she shouldn’t have heard your father was in the house. For she would have stopped me going in, and he was the only person alive who could have made me see sense. You couldn’t have made me. When I am very happy” — she kissed him— “I remember on how little it all hangs. If Charlotte had only known, she would have stopped me going in, and I should have gone to silly Greece, and become different for ever.”

  “But she did know,” said George; “she did see my father, surely. He said so.”

  “Oh, no, she didn’t see him. She was upstairs with old Mrs. Beebe, don’t you remember, and then went straight to the church. She said so.”

  George was obstinate again. “My father,” said he, “saw her, and I prefer his word. He was dozing by the study fire, and he opened his eyes, and there was Miss Bartlett. A few minutes before you came in. She was turning to go as he woke up. He didn’t speak to her.”

  Then they spoke of other things — the desultory talk of those who have been fighting to reach one another, and whose reward is to rest quietly in each other’s arms. It was long ere they returned to Miss Bartlett, but when they did her behaviour seemed more interesting. George, who disliked any darkness, said: “It’s clear that she knew. Then, why did she risk the meeting? She knew he was there, and yet she went to church.”

  They tried to piece the thing together.

  As they talked, an incredible solution came into Lucy’s mind. She rejected it, and said: “How like Charlotte to undo her work by a feeble muddle at the last moment.” But something in the dying evening, in the roar of the river, in their very embrace warned them that her words fell short of life, and George whispered: “Or did she mean it?”

  “Mean what?”

  “Signorino, domani faremo uno giro— “

  Lucy bent forward and said with gentleness: “Lascia, prego, lascia. Siamo sposati.”

  “Scusi tanto, signora,” he replied in tones as gentle and whipped up his horse.

  “Buona sera — e grazie.”

  “Niente.”

  The cabman drove away singing.

  “Mean what, George?”

  He whispered: “Is it this? Is this possible? I’ll put a marvel to you. That your cousin has always hoped. That from the very first moment we met, she hoped, far down in her mind, that we should be like this — of course, very far down. That she fought us on the surface, and yet she hoped. I can’t explain her any other way. Can you? Look how she kept me alive in you all the summer; how she gave you no peace; how month after month she became more eccentric and unreliable. The sight of us haunted her — or she couldn’t have described us as she did to her friend. There are details — it burnt. I read the book afterwards. She is not frozen, Lucy, she is not withered up all through. She tore us apart twice, but in the rectory that evening she was given one more chance to make us happy. We can never make friends with her or thank her. But I do believe that, far down in her heart, far below all speech and behaviour, she is glad.”

  “It is impossible,” murmured Lucy, and then, remembering the experiences of her own heart, she said: “No — it is just possible.”

  Youth enwrapped them; the song of Phaethon announced passion requited, love attained. But they were conscious of a love more mysterious than this. The song died away; they heard the river, bearing down the snows of winter into the Mediterranean.

  THE END

  HOWARDS END

  This famous novel was published in 1910 and was well-received by critics and the general public alike, and continues to be regarded as a classic of twentieth-century English literature. It is a ‘state of England’ novel, intended as a ‘snapshot’ of society and culture in Britain during the Edwardian period.

  The story concerns the relationship between three family groups – the orphaned Schlegel siblings (Helen, Margaret and Tibby), the wealthy Wilcoxes and the lower-middle-class Basts (the clerk Leonard and his vulgar wife, Jacky). Events are set in action when Helen Schlegel agrees to marry Paul Wilcox, the youngest son of the industrialist Henry Wilcox and his wife Ruth. The engagement is broken off, but Margaret Schlegel becomes friends with Paul’s mother, who decides to leave the Wilcox’s house, Howards End, to Margaret in her will. The will is contested and the Schlegels renounce their claim on the property. Henry Schlegel marries Margaret, however, and the house becomes hers after all.

  In a subplot, which gradually becomes more important as the novel progresses, the Schlegels and the Wilcoxes keep encountering Leonard Bast, a struggling Clerk that views the Schlegels as the epitome of the culture he so desperately wishes to emulate in a bid to lift him out of poverty. The first meeting occurs when Leonard accidentally steals Helen Schlegel’s umbrella, while a chance meeting with Henry Wilcox leads the latter to suggest that Leonard leave his job as an insurance clerk – to Leonard’s ultimate detriment. The unexpected connections between the three families mount to a tragic climax, although the final conclusion is cautiously optimistic.

  The novel brings to fruition several prominent themes detectable in all of Forster’s previous fiction, which appear here fully developed and worked through. ‘Connection’ or empathy between individuals is seen as the key to bridging the rift between classes, while an obtuse inability to connect with others (the Wilcoxes’ main fault) is seen as a barrier to human and societal progress. Indeed, ‘only connect’, the novel’s epigraph, has become famous as a motto in itself.

  The rural idyll of Howards End (based on Forster’s beloved childhood home, ‘Rooksnest’) is symbolic of England itself, with the contrasting forces of culture and spiritual connection (the Schlegels) and insular, materialistic philistinism (the Wilcoxes) competing for occupation of the house. Ultimately, however, the novel argues that the two impulses must work together, or ‘connect’, if England is to have a future.

  The first edition

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER I.

  CHAPTER II

  CHAPTER III

  CHAPTER IV

  CHAPTER V

  CHAPTER VI

  CHAPTER VII


  CHAPTER VIII

  CHAPTER IX

  CHAPTER X

  CHAPTER XI

  CHAPTER XII

  CHAPTER XIII

  CHAPTER XIV

  CHAPTER XV

  CHAPTER XVI

  CHAPTER XVII

  CHAPTER XVIII

  CHAPTER XIX

  CHAPTER XX

  CHAPTER XXI

  CHAPTER XXII

  CHAPTER XXIII

  CHAPTER XXIV

  CHAPTER XXV

  CHAPTER XXVI

  CHAPTER XXVII

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  CHAPTER XXIX

  CHAPTER XXX

  CHAPTER XXXI

  CHAPTER XXXII

  CHAPTER XXXIII

  CHAPTER XXXIV

  CHAPTER XXXV

  CHAPTER XXXVI

  CHAPTER XXXVII

  CHAPTER XXXVIII

  CHAPTER XXXIX

  CHAPTER XL

  CHAPTER XLI

  CHAPTER XLII

  CHAPTER XLIII

  CHAPTER XLIV

  ‘Rooksnest’ in Stevenage, Hertfordshire — Forster’s childhood home and the basis for ‘Howards End’ in the novel

  Poster for the 1992 Oscar-winning film version of the novel

  CHAPTER I.

  One may as well begin with Helen’s letters to her sister.

  “Howards End,

  “Tuesday.

  “Dearest Meg,

  “It isn’t going to be what we expected. It is old and little, and altogether delightful — red brick. We can scarcely pack in as it is, and the dear knows what will happen when Paul (younger son) arrives to-morrow. From hall you go right or left into dining-room or drawing-room. Hall itself is practically a room. You open another door in it, and there are the stairs going up in a sort of tunnel to the first-floor. Three bed-rooms in a row there, and three attics in a row above. That isn’t all the house really, but it’s all that one notices — nine windows as you look up from the front garden.

  “Then there’s a very big wych-elm — to the left as you look up — leaning a little over the house, and standing on the boundary between the garden and meadow. I quite love that tree already. Also ordinary elms, oaks — no nastier than ordinary oaks — pear-trees, apple-trees, and a vine. No silver birches, though. However, I must get on to my host and hostess. I only wanted to show that it isn’t the least what we expected. Why did we settle that their house would be all gables and wiggles, and their garden all gamboge-coloured paths? I believe simply because we associate them with expensive hotels — Mrs. Wilcox trailing in beautiful dresses down long corridors, Mr. Wilcox bullying porters, etc. We females are that unjust.

  “I shall be back Saturday; will let you know train later. They are as angry as I am that you did not come too; really Tibby is too tiresome, he starts a new mortal disease every month. How could he have got hay fever in London? and even if he could, it seems hard that you should give up a visit to hear a schoolboy sneeze. Tell him that Charles Wilcox (the son who is here) has hay fever too, but he’s brave, and gets quite cross when we inquire after it. Men like the Wilcoxes would do Tibby a power of good. But you won’t agree, and I’d better change the subject.

  “This long letter is because I’m writing before breakfast. Oh, the beautiful vine leaves! The house is covered with a vine. I looked out earlier, and Mrs. Wilcox was already in the garden. She evidently loves it. No wonder she sometimes looks tired. She was watching the large red poppies come out. Then she walked off the lawn to the meadow, whose corner to the right I can just see. Trail, trail, went her long dress over the sopping grass, and she came back with her hands full of the hay that was cut yesterday — I suppose for rabbits or something, as she kept on smelling it. The air here is delicious. Later on I heard the noise of croquet balls, and looked out again, and it was Charles Wilcox practising; they are keen on all games. Presently he started sneezing and had to stop. Then I hear more clicketing, and it is Mr. Wilcox practising, and then, ‘a-tissue, a-tissue’: he has to stop too. Then Evie comes out, and does some calisthenic exercises on a machine that is tacked on to a green-gage-tree — they put everything to use — and then she says ‘a-tissue,’ and in she goes. And finally Mrs. Wilcox reappears, trail, trail, still smelling hay and looking at the flowers. I inflict all this on you because once you said that life is sometimes life and sometimes only a drama, and one must learn to distinguish tother from which, and up to now I have always put that down as ‘Meg’s clever nonsense.’ But this morning, it really does seem not life but a play, and it did amuse me enormously to watch the W’s. Now Mrs. Wilcox has come in.

  “I am going to wear [omission]. Last night Mrs. Wilcox wore an [omission], and Evie [omission]. So it isn’t exactly a go-as-you-please place, and if you shut your eyes it still seems the wiggly hotel that we expected. Not if you open them. The dog-roses are too sweet. There is a great hedge of them over the lawn — magnificently tall, so that they fall down in garlands, and nice and thin at the bottom, so that you can see ducks through it and a cow. These belong to the farm, which is the only house near us. There goes the breakfast gong. Much love. Modified love to Tibby. Love to Aunt Juley; how good of her to come and keep you company, but what a bore. Burn this. Will write again Thursday.

  “HELEN.”

  “Howards End

  “Friday

  “Dearest Meg,

  “I am having a glorious time. I like them all. Mrs. Wilcox, if quieter than in Germany, is sweeter than ever, and I never saw anything like her steady unselfishness, and the best of it is that the others do not take advantage of her. They are the very happiest, jolliest family that you can imagine. I do really feel that we are making friends. The fun of it is that they think me a noodle, and say so — at least, Mr. Wilcox does — and when that happens, and one doesn’t mind, it’s a pretty sure test, isn’t it? He says the most horrid things about woman’s suffrage so nicely, and when I said I believed in equality he just folded his arms and gave me such a setting down as I’ve never had. Meg, shall we ever learn to talk less? I never felt so ashamed of myself in my life. I couldn’t point to a time when men had been equal, nor even to a time when the wish to be equal had made them happier in other ways. I couldn’t say a word. I had just picked up the notion that equality is good from some book — probably from poetry, or you. Anyhow, it’s been knocked into pieces, and, like all people who are really strong, Mr. Wilcox did it without hurting me. On the other hand, I laugh at them for catching hay fever. We live like fighting-cocks, and Charles takes us out every day in the motor — a tomb with trees in it, a hermit’s house, a wonderful road that was made by the Kings of Mercia — tennis — a cricket match — bridge and at night we squeeze up in this lovely house. The whole clan’s here now — it’s like a rabbit warren. Evie is a dear. They want me to stop over Sunday — I suppose it won’t matter if I do. Marvellous weather and the views marvellous — views westward to the high ground. Thank you for your letter. Burn this.

  “Your affectionate

  “HELEN.”

  “Howards End,

  “Sunday.

  “Dearest, dearest Meg, — I do not know what you will say: Paul and I are in love — the younger son who only came here Wednesday.”

  CHAPTER II

  Margaret glanced at her sister’s note and pushed it over the breakfast-table to her aunt. There was a moment’s hush, and then the flood-gates opened.

  “I can tell you nothing, Aunt Juley. I know no more than you do. We met — we only met the father and mother abroad last spring. I know so little that I didn’t even know their son’s name. It’s all so— “ She waved her hand and laughed a little.

  “In that case it is far too sudden.”

  “Who knows, Aunt Juley, who knows?”

  “But, Margaret, dear, I mean, we mustn’t be unpractical now that we’ve come to facts. It is too sudden, surely.”

  “Who knows!”

  “But, Margaret, dear— “

  “I’ll go for her other le
tters,” said Margaret. “No, I won’t, I’ll finish my breakfast. In fact, I haven’t them. We met the Wilcoxes on an awful expedition that we made from Heidelberg to Speyer. Helen and I had got it into our heads that there was a grand old cathedral at Speyer — the Archbishop of Speyer was one of the seven electors — you know— ‘Speyer, Maintz, and Koln.’ Those three sees once commanded the Rhine Valley and got it the name of Priest Street.”

  “I still feel quite uneasy about this business, Margaret.”

  “The train crossed by a bridge of boats, and at first sight it looked quite fine. But oh, in five minutes we had seen the whole thing. The cathedral had been ruined, absolutely ruined, by restoration; not an inch left of the original structure. We wasted a whole day, and came across the Wilcoxes as we were eating our sandwiches in the public gardens. They too, poor things, had been taken in — they were actually stopping at Speyer — and they rather liked Helen’s insisting that they must fly with us to Heidelberg. As a matter of fact, they did come on next day. We all took some drives together. They knew us well enough to ask Helen to come and see them — at least, I was asked too, but Tibby’s illness prevented me, so last Monday she went alone. That’s all. You know as much as I do now. It’s a young man out of the unknown. She was to have come back Saturday, but put off till Monday, perhaps on account of — I don’t know.”

  She broke off, and listened to the sounds of a London morning. Their house was in Wickham Place, and fairly quiet, for a lofty promontory of buildings separated it from the main thoroughfare. One had the sense of a backwater, or rather of an estuary, whose waters flowed in from the invisible sea, and ebbed into a profound silence while the waves without were still beating. Though the promontory consisted of flats — expensive, with cavernous entrance halls, full of concierges and palms — it fulfilled its purpose, and gained for the older houses opposite a certain measure of peace.