“In time, Mr Hall, one gets to recognize that sneer, that hardness, for fornication extends far beyond the actual deed. Were it a deed only, I for one would not hold it anathema. But when the nations went a whoring they invariably ended by denying God, I think, and until all sexual irregularities and not some of them are penal the Church will never reconquer England.”

English author

Edward Morgan Forster was an English author. He is known for his novels, including A Room with a View, Howards End and A Passage to India. He also wrote short stories, essays, speeches, broadcasts, biographies and pageant plays, and he co-authored the libretto for Benjamin Britten's opera Billy Budd. His fiction often looks at class differences and hypocrisy, and his humanist outlook is central to his work.