Library of Inspiration: Howards End

The Library of Inspiration has been a tremendous experience. It is rewarding to share in the embrace of passion. The work and sweat of others continues to inspire emotions and gratitude. This site is just an echo. The art itself is immortal, as always, accessible to anyone who seeks the power contained in the archives. New treasure seekers are born every day.

It will be generally admitted that Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is the most sublime noise that has ever penetrated into the ear of man. All sorts of conditions are satisfied by it. Whether you’re like Mrs. Munt, and tap surreptitiously when the tunes come—of course, not so as to disturb the others—; or like Helen, who can see heroes and shipwrecks in the music’s flood; or like Margaret, who can only see the music; or like Tibby, who is profoundly versed in counterpoint, and holds the full score open on his knee; or like their cousin, Fraulein Mosebach, who remembers all the time that Beethoven is “echt Deutsch”; or like Fraulein Mosebach’s young man, who can remember nothing Fraulein Mosebach: in any case, the passion of your life becomes more vivid….

As alive as the works is the engagement of the audience, the response, and even the spirited disagreements that are triggered. That I cannot imagine anything more rhythmically gorgeous than a Paul Bowles while a friend or peer can scoff at such a notion and bring up Kavalier & Clay. That our views on the The Sex Pistols are what they are: polar and intense. And alive.

In the end, the beauty of it all lies not only in the eye of the beholder but in the convergence of inspiration that is continually derived. It is an extraordinary side effect to simply enjoying the art. The inspiration born can bring us closer together. You and me. And hopefully, in no small way, we become more aware of our surroundings.

We are not concerned with the very poor. They are unthinkable, and only to be approached by the statistician or the poet. This story deals with gentlefolk, or with those who are obliged to pretend that they are gentlefolk.

Don’t believe it. E.M. Forster is, in fact, as concerned with the poor as he is with the filthy rich. Class distinctions are as meaningless to him as the material possessions that draw lines in the sand.

The Age or Property holds bitter moments even for a proprietor. When a move is imminent, furniture becomes ridiculous, and Margaret now lay awake at nights wondering where, where on earth they and all their belonging would be deposited in September next. Chairs, tables, pictures, books, that had rumbled down to them through the generations, must rumble forward again like a slide of rubbish to which she longed to give the final push, and send toppling into the sea. But there were all their father’s books—they never read them, but they were their father’s, and must be kept. There was the marble-topped chiffonier—their mother had set store by it, they could not remember why. Round every knob and cushion in the house sentiment gathered, a sentiment that was at times personal, but more often a faint piety to the dead, a prolongation of rites that might have ended at the grave.

In the end, the only thing that matters is not the size of the home or closets therein but the riches that are available to us all: a grandmother’s memories, a mom’s only love, a family (the ones that surround you and spills unique wisdom and guidance), a community of friends to compare notes.

Anything else is nothing.

-G