Howard's End #3: Closely Watched Trains of Thought

So already, I love Margaret Schlegel.  But what's really intriguing me at the moment is the relationship between Margaret and E.M. Forster, or that narrator of his in Howard's End.

In Chapter 2, Forster describes Margaret as "not beautiful, not supremely brilliant, but filled with something that took the place of both qualities -- something best described as a profound vivacity, a continual and sincere response to all that she encountered on her path through life."  Not mere cheerfulness, but "profound vivacity." Sigh!

Interestingly, Forster makes Margaret an orphan.  The legacy of her father and mother seems to be only Margaret, her brother, and her sister; their father's sword; and pieces of furniture that seem perfectly suited to the rooms of Howard's End. 

Maybe Forster (I'm now going to talk as if Forster himself is the narrator, even if I'm wrong about that) does that so he alone can be her protector and her very gentle critic. In my second Howard's End post, I spoke about Margaret's aborted attempt to join Mrs. Wilcox at King's Cross -- imagination was dismissed by family. (Maybe this is why Forster gives Margaret no interested or concerned parents?) But earlier in the novel, Forster reveals that "Like many others who have lived long in a great capital, she had strong feelings about the various railway termini. They are our gates to the glorious and the unknown."  That second sentence feels stream-of consciousness to me:  Forster has just switched from reporting that Margaret attaches meanings to railway stations to saying in her voice what purpose those stations play in "our" lives.  

What could be more romantic, more confident of happy triumph than such a thought! I could imagine thinking such a romantic thought to myself at various points in my life, could imagine imbuing a physical place with significance and symbolism; but I can also imagine feeling both silly and inspired to be thinking such a thing -- probably silly enough that I would either mention nothing about it, or share it with a very, very few carefully selected friends.  But unlike Margaret Schlegel, I'm not being tailed by a third-person limited omniscient narrator who occasionally quotes my inner voice.

But only a paragraph later, Forster protects Margaret from our (with "our," I'm referring to all of us as the readers) unfavorable judgment:  "To Margaret -- I hope that it will not set the reader against her -- the station of King's Cross had always suggested Infinity."  Forster then lays out Margaret's reasoning, revealing that she is keenly aware of the London's commercial preoccupations: "It's very situation -- . . . -- implied a comment on the materialism of life.  Those two great arches, colourless, indifferent, shouldering  between them an unlovely clock, were fit portals for some eternal adventure, whose issue might be prosperous, but would certainly not be expressed in the ordinary language of prosperity."

So now we have the double understanding challenge of an "unlovely" clock flanked by disinterested arches ironically marking the point of origin of an "eternal" enterprise -- and a language related to prosperity that is insufficient to the task of explaining the rewards of such a time-transcending enterprise.

Anticipating that we might find this baffling and dismiss Margaret as strange or out of her mind, Forster swoops in to rescue her by blaming himself for our potential negative opinion, and reminding us that there's no harm in Margaret's ideas:  "If you think this is ridiculous, remember that it is not Margaret who is telling you about it; and let me hasten to add that they were in plenty of time for the train; . . .."  Thoughts of greatness and eternity emanating from King's Cross do not hinder Margaret from getting to the station in time. Forster assures us that Margaret can imagine, philosophize, and continue to function in the world of ordinary time.

But this is exactly where my Forster-as-the-narrator assumption could break down:  this narrator is not talking as if he created Margaret, which Forster did. Or maybe, the narrator is Forster, and as the creator and chronicler of Margaret, he has wound her up and let her go, empowering her to have authority over her own story and views. Or maybe he's just playing around -- because it's his book and he can if he pleases. I vote for the last option.

Margaret talks about trains again as she joins her life to Henry Wilcox's.  She explains to Helen, who disapproves of men of commerce, 

     "If Wilcoxes hadn't worked and died in England for thousands of years, . . . There 
     would be no trains, no ships to carry us literary people about  in, no fields even. 
     Just savagery.  No -- perhaps not even that. Without their spirit, life might never 
     have moved out of the protoplasm. More and more do I refuse to draw my 
     income and sneer at those who guarantee it." 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Depot_Square_Wollaston_postcard.JPG

For Margaret, trains have become practical necessities, symbols not of beckoning glory, but of progress and material comfort purchased by commerce; they've metamorphosed into needed transport for those who pursue "the glorious and the unknown" but who hardly can be counted on to figure out how to travel there. Margaret ends her defense by taking a stand against hypocrisy -- always noble.  She's the deficient one here; the Wilcoxes and their like are the liberators and civilizers -- the dependable ones and perhaps even the visionaries.  Helen interrupts Margaret at one point; the narrator doesn't. 

But right before Margaret delivers this mini-lecture to Helen, the narrator says, "She waved her hand at the landscape, which confirmed anything."  I love that Forster doesn't say "which confirmed nothing."  He's still on her side!

And as for Margaret, her ability to argue for the romantic and the pragmatic in alternation is good-hearted and hopeful, but . . .