How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #10
Margaret's anger and terror increased every moment. How dare these men label her sister! What horrors lay ahead! What impertinences that shelter under the name of science! The pack was turning on Helen, to deny her human rights, and it seemed to Margaret that all Schlegels were threatened with her. "Were they normal?" What a question to ask! And it is always those who know nothing about human nature, who are bored by psychology and shocked by physiology, who ask it. However piteous her sister's state, she knew that she must be on her side. They would be mad together if the world chose to consider them so. (35.18)
The Schlegel identity is clearly outside the bounds of what the conventional (Wilcox) world thinks is "normal" – this is the moment of crisis for Margaret, where she's forced to choose between the life she's picked for herself with Henry, and her old identity as Helen's sister.
Quote #11
"I feel that you and I and Henry are only fragments of that woman's mind. She knows everything. She is everything. She is the house, and the tree that leans over it. People have their own deaths as well as their own lives, and even if there is nothing beyond death, we shall differ in our nothingness. I cannot believe that knowledge such as hers will perish with knowledge such as mine. She knew about realities. She knew when people were in love, though she was not in the room. I don't doubt that she knew when Henry deceived her." (40.9)
Mrs. Wilcox (the first one) comes up again at the novel's end, as everything falls into place at Howards End – Margaret ponders the mystery of her identity, which seemed to merge somehow with everything else that was real in the world.