E.M. Forster begins Howards End with two thematic signals so simple and so innocent that the unsuspecting firsttime reader may fail to comprehend their importance—at least until the end of the piece. The novel opens with a letter from Helen Schlegel to her sister Margaret that begins with a description of the house at Howards End: "It is old and little, and altogether delightful—red brick." Later in the letter she reports that "The air here is delicious." Following the epistolary exchange, Forster moves the setting to Wickham Place, London, from the country to the still peaceful city, to a house "fairly quiet, for a lofty promontory of buildings separated it from the main thoroughfare. Though the promontory consisted of flats—expensive with cavernous entrance halls, full of concierges and palms—it fulfilled its purpose, and gained for the older...