Quote 1
“We know that we come from the winds, and that we shall return to them; that all life is perhaps a knot, a tangle, a blemish in the eternal smoothness. But why should this make us unhappy? Let us rather love one another, and work and rejoice” (2.45).
This unconventional and irreligious view, voiced by Mr. Emerson, poses a challenge to the stuffy Protestant ethic of the society Forster describes. In Mr. Emerson’s view of spirituality and the world, love between human beings is what matters more than anything else.
Quote 2
"Leave them alone," Mr. Emerson begged the chaplain, of whom he stood in no awe. "Do we find happiness so often that we should turn it off the box when it happens to sit there? To be driven by lovers—A king might envy us, and if we part them it's more like sacrilege than anything I know" (6.12).
Poor Mr. Emerson. He’s a real romantic in a crowd of cynics; he alone really believes wholeheartedly in the value of love and happiness above social propriety.
Quote 3
"I taught him," he quavered, "to trust in love. I said: 'When love comes, that is reality.' I said: 'Passion does not blind. No. Passion is sanity, and the woman you love, she is the only person you will ever really understand'" (19.27).
In this heartfelt declaration, Mr. Emerson totally overturns all of the social logic we’ve seen at work throughout the novel. His claim that “Passion is sanity” is the opposite of society’s stern opinion that social order is sanity. In Mr. E’s opinion (and in Forster’s… and in ours), love is more valuable and truthful than any barriers of class or expectation.