Howards End Patriotism Quotes

How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #7

Here men had been up since dawn. Their hours were ruled, not by a London office, but by the movements of the crops and the sun. That they were men of the finest type only the sentimentalist can declare. But they kept to the life of daylight. They are England's hope. Clumsily they carry forward the torch of the sun, until such time as the nation sees fit to take it up. Half clodhopper, half board-school prig, they can still throw back to a nobler stock, and breed yeomen. (41.29)

The narrator's rather curious notion of Englishness emerges most clearly here, where he defines "England's hope" as the people of the countryside, who are still connected to the land and its spirit in a way that London businessmen never will be.