''A social comedy, often delightful . . . with energy, curiosity and wit''DAVID NICHOLLS ''Forster''s masterpiece''THE TIMES''The present flowed by them like a stream. The tree rustled. It had made music before they were born, and would continue after their deaths, but its song was of the moment.''Howards End, the country home of the Wilcoxes, overlooks a fertile garden and a meadow beyond, the boundary marked by a majestic wych-elm tree. Great red poppies bloom, cherry and plum trees flower and the scent of cut hay perfumes the air.In the spring of 1905, within those vine-covered walls, a brief romance between Helen Schlegel and Paul Wilcox brings the pragmatic, bourgeois Wilcoxes into conflict with the liberal, idealistic Schlegels. When Helen befriends Leonard Bast, a young bank clerk on the edge of ruin, a chain of events is set in motion that brings the Schlegel, Wilcox and Bast families together irrevocably, for better or for worse, and leads back, in the end, to where it all began, Howards End.