E.M. Forster on Sainthood, Hermeneutics, and Truth

Sainthood:

"It was, in a new form, the old, old trouble that eats the heart out of every civilization: snobbery, the desire for possessions, creditable appendages; and it is to escape this rather than the lusts of the flesh that saints retreat into the Himalayas" - E. M. Forster, A Passage To India (London: Edward Arnold & Co., 1947), 251.

Hermeneutics:

"Although her hard school-mistressy manner remained, she was no longer examining life, but being examined by it; she had become a real person" (254).

...and Truth:

"But . . . her behaviour rested on cold justice and honesty; she had felt, while she recanted, no passion of love for those whom she had wronged. Truth is not truth in that exacting land unless there go with it kindness and more kindness and kindness again, unless the Word that was with God also is God. And the girl's sacrifice--so creditable according to Western notions--was rightly rejected, because, though it came from her heart, it did not include her heart" (254-5).

Regular programming, such as it is, will most likely resume in a month or two.

E.M. Forster on Living

Most of life is so dull that there is nothing to be said about it, and the books and talk that would describe it as interesting are obliged to exaggerate, in the hope of justifying their own existence. Inside its cocoon of work or social obligation, the human spirit slumbers for the most part, registering the distinction between pleasure and pain, but not nearly as alert as we pretend. There are periods in the most thrilling day during which nothing happens, and though we continue to exclaim, 'I do enjoy myself,' or, 'I am horrified,' we are insincere. 'As far as I feel anything, it is enjoyment, horror'--it's no more than that really, and a perfectly adjusted organism would be silent. - E. M. Forster, A Passage To India (London: Edward Arnold & Co., 1947), 139.

This is my second time through A Passage to India. Since I rarely read novels twice, that's saying something!