Personal relations are the important thing for ever and ever, and not this outer life of telegrams and anger.
George had turned at the sound of her arrival. For a moment he contemplated her, as one who had fallen out of heaven. He saw radiant joy in her face, he saw the flowers beat against her dress in blue waves. The bushes above them closed. He stepped quickly forward and kissed her. Before she could speak, almost before she could feel, a voice called 'Lucy! Lucy! Lucy!' The silence of life had been broken by Miss Bartlett, who stood brown against the view.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote captures a moment of intense admiration and budding emotion between two characters, highlighting the beauty of love at first sight.
In this scene, E. M. Forster portrays an enchanting moment of connection between George and Lucy. George's awe and admiration for Lucy's radiant beauty exemplify the profound impact of love, as he perceives her as a celestial being bringing joy into his life. This moment encapsulates the spontaneity and wonder that accompanies newfound affection, further emphasized by the interruption of Miss Bartlett, which abruptly disrupts their intimate encounter and signifies the complexities and challenges that love often faces.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a romantic gathering, one could quote this to describe the magical moment of two people connecting.
More from E. M. Forster
All quotes →A poem is true if it hangs together. Information points to something else. A poem points to nothing but itself.
One must be fond of people and trust them if one is not to make a mess of life.
Oxford is Oxford: not a mere receptacle for youth, like Cambridge. Perhaps it wants its inmates to love it rather than to love one another.
The fact is we can only love what we know personally. And we cannot know much. In public affairs, in the rebuilding of civilization, something less dramatic and emotional is needed, namely tolerance.
One person with passion is better than forty people merely interested.
Similar quotes
time is a tree (this life one leaf) but love is the sky and i am for you just so long and long enough
But time, as well as healing all wounds, taught me something strange too: that it's possible to love more than one person in a lifetime. I remarried. I'm very happy with my new wife, and I can't imagine living without her. This, however, doesn't mean that I have to renounce all my past experiences, as long as I'm careful not to compare my two lives. You can't measure love the way you can the length of a road or the height of a building.
Love is a well from which we can drink only as much as we have put in, and the stars that shine from it are only our eyes looking in.
What power has love but forgiveness? In other words by its intervention what has been done can be undone. What good is it otherwise?
To kiss well one must kiss solely. No groping hands or stammering hearts. The lips and the lips alone are the pleasure. Passion is sweeter split strand by strand. Divided and re-divided like mercury then gathered up only at the last moment.
You don't want to live your life and then meet someone. You want to share your life with someone. That's what I'm missing right now.