The Books: “Howards End” (E.M. Forster)

Daily Book Excerpt: Adult fiction:

Howards End – by E.M. Forster

I wrote yesterday a bit about Howards End. This book feels like it becomes more relevant with each passing day. Aside from the intricacies of the characters lives – it’s about England – city vs. country – and what faster transportation will mean – or do … the divides between us, the misunderstandings – that have, at times, lasted centuries … they are engrained. These larger themes of course are reflected in the lives of the characters – the two Schlegel sisters, Margaret and Helen – and their encounters with the Wilcox family. The Schlegels are intellectuals – on their own – they’re “modernism” … the Wilcoxes, ensconced on their estate in the country – are about tradition – but there’s an elegiac feeling to them, as though this is their last decade of being on the top of the heap – and somewhere they know it. For them, life is about LAND, and possessions – the traditions of their family bound up in trees and houses, etc. These two strands of English life come together – there are multiple plots – spinning away on their own – until finally, they all start to merge. I’m not writing about the book brilliantly – but it is a brilliant book. One of the true greats.

Normally I try to find an excerpt that might be a little unexpected – I usually stay away from “openings” of books – and I certainly stay away from the endings!! In this case, I can’t help myself – I’m posting the most famous passage from the book.

I read the book at a time of huge upheaval. I was heartbroken because of a man. I was falling in love with another man. But … but … I was young enough to be dismayed that the love for the NEW man didn’t feel the same as the love for the other man! I wanted it to feel the same as that OTHER love. There was such a sadness in me then, such a loss – and Michael – who was not a day over 20 years old – tried to deal as best he could. And along comes Howards End, which I was reading at the time for the first time. (I had seen the movie, but that doesn’t count.) And along comes this passage. I had probably heard it before – because it’s one of THOSE passages – like “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times …” Whether or not you have read Tale of 2 Cities you probably have heard of that. But in the blazing fall that I read this book – the passage came across to me not just as beautiful writing, or good philosophy … It came across as something I NEEDED. RIGHT THEN. It was a message I needed in that very moment. You know how books can sometimes do that? And it comes out of nowhere – but you realize: this is what I have been looking for, this is what I have been missing ….

So normally I stay away from the most-famous passages – just because it’s funner to find alternatives, flipping through the books, etc. But in this case I’ll make an exception. Because I read it and I see the fiery autumn leaves, and I see me and Michael lying in the park, reading our books, drinking coffee, and I remember my struggle, my internal struggle … The book helped me FRAME my own life in that autumn. This love with Michael is, as great as it is, PROSE. The other one was POETRY. But still. This PROSE is pretty nice. Not everything has to be poetry. Accept the prose. Accept the prose. That experience with the other man does not have to “disconnect” you from love forever … or from other men … only connect, only connect … Integrate it somehow … integrate it … live with it … Prose has its place. Prose has its place – no less than poetry …

Only connect. Only connect.

It was a deeply profound thing for me – in that moment … so. Here’s the passage. Interestingly enough, it is a description of Margaret’s feelings about love.

If I could pick one passage that describes how I want to live my life – in every aspect – it would be the “only connect” passage below.

EXCERPT FROM Howards End – by E.M. Forster

Margaret greeted her lord with peculiar tenderness on the morrow. Mature as he was, she might yet be able to help him to the building of the rainbow bridge that should connect the prose in us with the passion. Without it we are meaningless fragments, half monks, half beasts, unconnected arches that have never joined into a man. With it love is born, and alights on the highest curve, glowing against the grey, sober against the fire. Happy the man who sees from either aspect the glory of these outspread wings. The roads of his soul lie clear, and he and his friends shall find easy going.

It was hard going in the road of Mr. Wilcox’s soul. From boyhood he had neglected them. “I am not a fellow who bothers about my own inside.” Outwardly he was cheerful, reliable, and brave; but within, all had reverted to chaos, ruled, so far as it was ruled at all, by an incomplete asceticism. Whether as boy, husband, or widower, he had always the sneaking belief that bodily passion is bad, a belief that is desirable only when held passionately. Religion had confirmed him. The words that were read aloud on Sunday to him and to other respectable men were the words that had once kindled the souls of St. Catharine and St. Francis into a white-hot hatred of the carnal. He could not be as the saints and love the Infinite with a seraphic ardour, but he could be a little ashamed of loving a wife. “Amabat, amare timebat.” And it was here that Margaret hoped to help him.

It did not seem so difficult. She need trouble him with no gift of her own. She would only point out the salvation that was latent in his own soul, and in the soul of every man. Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect, and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to either, will die.

Nor was the message difficult to give. It need not take the form of a good “talking”. By quiet indications the bridge would be built and span their lives with beauty.

But she failed. For there was one quality in Henry for which she was never prepared, however much she reminded herself of it: his obtuseness. He simply did not notice things, and there was no more to be said. He never noticed that Helen and Frieda were hostile, or that Tibby was not interested in currant plantations; he never noticed the lights and shades that exist in the greyest conversation, the finger-posts, the milestones, the collisions, the illimitable views. Once – on another occasion – she scolded him about it. He was puzzled, but replied with a laugh: “My motto is Concentrate. I’ve no intention of frittering away my strength on that sort of thing.” “It isn’t frittering away the strength,” she protested. “It’s enlarging the space in which you may be strong.” He answered: “You’re a clever little woman, but my motto’s Concentrate.” And this morning he concentrated with a vengeance.