How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
“Well,” said he, “I cannot help it if they do disapprove of me. There are certain irremovable barriers between myself and them, and I must accept them” (9.6).
The “he” here, Cecil, is really just being a pretentious jerk. His inflated sense of self-importance and dramatic difference allows him to take pleasure in fancying himself “irremovably” separated from the nice old ladies of Lucy’s neighborhood. Not only does he see himself as another class, he is almost of another breed entirely.
Quote #8
Life, so far as she troubled to conceive it, was a circle of rich, pleasant people, with identical interests and identical foes. In this circle, one thought, married, and died. Outside it were poverty and vulgarity for ever trying to enter, just as the London fog tries to enter the pine-woods pouring through the gaps in the northern hills. But, in Italy, where any one who chooses may warm himself in equality, as in the sun, this conception of life vanished. Her senses expanded; she felt that there was no one whom she might not get to like, that social barriers were irremovable, doubtless, but not particularly high. You jump over them just as you jump into a peasant's olive-yard in the Apennines, and he is glad to see you (10.2).
For the first time, Lucy can imagine a world unbounded by the pleasantly polite but limited restrictions of the social milieu she grew up in. Italy, unlike England, seems to her to be uninhibited by class or rank, and this sensation of equality and liberty shakes the foundations of her previous view of the world.
Quote #9
His own content was absolute, but hers held bitterness: the Honeychurches had not forgiven them; they were disgusted at her past hypocrisy; she had alienated Windy Corner, perhaps for ever (20.9).
Even after the young lovers, now husband and wife, break free from the stuffiness of polite British society, its echoes continue to haunt them – well, to haunt Lucy. The price she has to pay for personal happiness turns out to be uneasy separation from her family, at least for the time being. This goes to show that the society of Forster’s novel is ultimately unforgiving; the ominous words “perhaps for ever” add a jarring note to Lucy and George’s unconventional marital bliss.