Blog #5: The Changing Country Estate

In Howards End, Forster’s narrator says, “To speak against London is no longer fashionable. The earth as an artistic cult has had its day, and the literature of the near future will probably ignore the country and seek inspiration from the town” (92). This passage brings to mind earlier texts like The Way We Live Now. Although Trollope’s text is satirical and shows a critical picture of England as a whole, Roger Carbury’s country estate seems idyllic in comparison to London. Hetta Carbury does not marry Roger, but the estate is still happily retained within the family, even if that family now includes Paul Montague. Forster’s narrator highlights a change in the current literature, no longer idealizing the country and instead highlighting city life. Howards End occupies a liminal place in that it continues to critique London, but it also revises the way readers see the landed estate.

The critique of London life and praise for the country estate is first seen through Mrs. Wilcox's character. Mrs. Wilcox “worshipped the past” (19), which is shown in her conservative views on a woman’s role and even more notably in her place attachment. When she hears about Margaret’s impending move, she cries, “Can what they call civilization be right, if people mayn’t die in the room where they were born?” (71). Her strongly-held opinion that people should always live in one place goes against the popular notions of progress and imperialism that her husband espouses, and at first Margaret cannot understand Mrs. Wilcox's viewpoint either. She tells Mrs. Wilcox that her life in London really has “something quiet and stable at the bottom” (67), and she doesn’t lament her move because their house was ordinary and they “shall easily find another” (71). However, things quickly change for Margaret. Even though she once put her faith in people and personal relationships, she tells Helen, “I believe we shall come to care about people less and less, Helen. The more people one knows the easier it becomes to replace them. It’s one of the curses of London. I quite expect to end my life caring most for a place” (111). With friendships becoming so common and disposable, Margaret looks for stability in a physical place. This desire is very nostalgic, and Margaret actually begins to realize that civilization is not moving forward but actually regressing backward: “The feudal ownership of land did bring dignity, whereas the modern ownership of movables is reducing us again to a nomadic horde” (128). Forster exposes the present way of life—which Trollope posits as the way we live “now” (and maybe the way we always lived)—and shows that there has been a distinct break from the more immediate past to turn towards an even more distant, primal past. This conception of property and home is cyclical, rather than a linear progression.

However, most people in the novel do not share Mrs. Wilcox and Margaret's opinions. When Mr. Wilcox tells Margaret that he thinks Ducie Street is “going down,” he says, “Shows things are moving. Good for trade” (156). In his mind, any sort of change is the mark of progress and business. Margaret is tired of the “continual flux” (156), but she also admits that people like the Wilcoxes “keep England going” (223). This comment implies that the way of the future is not to hold onto stability, as much as Margaret may wish for it. The country estate is an ideal, but it does not seem to be a viable option for England’s future like it is in Trollope’s novel. In The Way We Live Now, country estates are a safe, stable form of wealth. However, Howards End becomes disposable for the Wilcoxes because it is just another form of wealth that is more useful when liquidated. They hold onto the estate for some time, but they have plenty of other houses. Therefore, they ultimately relinquish Howards End to Margaret so that she won't get any of their money.

Only people like Mrs. Wilcox and Margaret, who are relics of the past, have a deeper connection to the country estate. In many ways, Forster’s novel is doing the same thing as other Victorian novels—lamenting the fall of the country estate’s importance while also idealizing it. Yet, what I found most interesting was the way in which the novel did away with hereditary transmission. Howards End is passed down from one woman to another woman, and not even of the same family: “To [the Wilcoxes] Howards End was a house: they could not know that to [Mrs. Wilcox] it had been a spirit, for which she sought a spiritual heir…Has the soul offspring? A wych-elm tree, a vine, a wisp of hay with dew on it—can passion for such things be transmitted where there is no bond of blood?” (84). Forster shows that unlike physical property, passions of the soul are one thing that cannot be passed down hereditarily. Furthermore, these passions hold a much higher importance than physical wealth, which is why Howards End is destined to belong to Margaret.

The country estate in The Way We Live Now appears to be the moral stronghold of the novel, a relic of the past that is nonetheless stable. The ending of Howards End paints a very different picture of the country estate. Helen says, “Life’s going to be melted down, all the world over” (290). Her comment again hints at the newer nomadic way of life in which property is liquidated, prophesying that all of England will one day become as fleeting and unstable as London. Margaret realizes that this is true and thinks that all country estates are “survivals, and the melting-pot was being prepared for them. Logically, they had no right to be alive” (290). However, Forster does not end his novel with this bleak fatalistic loss of England’s past that was invested in stability and place attachment. Instead, Margaret defies the world’s logic and says, “All the signs are against it now, but I can’t help hoping, and very early in the morning in the garden I feel that our house is the future as well as the past” (290). Margaret suggests that the world will always be unpredictable and the future is not yet determined, but if anything has the ability to last it will be Howards End, not for its stability as a financial property like it would be in Trollope’s novel, but for the spiritual sense of home that it provides.