For he did not, he would have said, care for women; he never felt at home or at ease with them; and that monstrous creature beginning to be talked about, the New Woman of the nineties, filled him with horror. He was a quiet, conventional person, and the world, viewed from the haven of Brookfield, seemed to him full of distasteful innovations; there was a fellow named Bernard Shaw who had the strangest and most reprehensible opinions; there was Ibsen, too, with his disturbing plays; and there was this new craze for bicycles which was being taken up by women equally with men. Chips did not hold with all this modern newness and freedom. He had a vague notion, if he ever formulated it, that nice women were weak, timid, and delicate, and that nice men treated them with a polite but rather distant chivalry. . James Hilton
About This Quote

Here, E. M. Forster is making a distinction between two kinds of men. He’s not talking about the idea of finding the perfect woman.

That would be unlikely to happen since no one knows how to find that person that defines perfection. He’s simply making a statement about the difference between the oldfashioned gentleman and the modern man. The old-fashioned gentleman was more stable in his thinking, while the new guy was more forward thinking and more progressive.

There are two reasons why this is an important statement. The first is that it sets some basic guidelines on what people should think of modern culture. The second is that some basic guidelines are important for everyone to have in regards to their lives, including their relationships with women.

Source: Goodbye, Mr. Chips

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