Northanger Abbey
the writers of history any longer. If people like to read their books,
it is all very well, but to be at so much trouble in filling great
volumes, which, as I used to think, nobody would willingly ever look
into, to be labouring only for the torment of little boys and girls,
always struck me as a hard fate; and though I know it is all very right
and necessary, I have often wondered at the person’s courage that could
sit down on purpose to do it.”
“That little boys and girls should be tormented,” said Henry, “is what
no one at all acquainted with human nature in a civilized state can
deny; but in behalf of our most distinguished historians, I must
observe that they might well be offended at being supposed to have no
higher aim, and that by their method and style, they are perfectly well
qualified to torment readers of the most advanced reason and mature
time of life. I use the verb ‘to torment,’ as I observed to be your own
method, instead of ‘to instruct,’ supposing them to be now admitted as
synonymous.”
“You think me foolish to call instruction a torment, but if you had
been as much used as myself to hear poor little children first learning
their letters and then learning to spell, if you had ever seen how
stupid they can be for a whole morning together, and how tired my poor
mother is at the end of it, as I am in the habit of seeing almost every
day of my life at home, you would allow that to _torment_ and to
_instruct_ might sometimes be used as synonymous words.”
“Very probably. But historians are not accountable for the difficulty
of learning to read; and even you yourself, who do not altogether seem
particularly friendly to very severe, very intense application, may
perhaps be brought to acknowledge that it is very well worth-while to
be tormented for two or three years of one’s life, for the sake of
being able to read all the rest of it. Consider—if reading had not been
taught, Mrs. Radcliffe would have written in vain—or perhaps might not
have written at all.”
Catherine assented—and a very warm panegyric from her on that lady’s
merits closed the subject. The Tilneys were soon engaged in another on
which she had nothing to say. They were viewing the country with the
eyes of persons accustomed to drawing, and decided on its capability of
being formed into pictures, with all the eagerness of real taste. Here
Catherine was quite lost. She knew nothing of drawing—nothing of taste:
and she listened to them with an attention which brought her little
profit, for they talked in phrases which conveyed scarcely any idea to
her. The little which she could understand, however, appeared to
contradict the very few notions she had entertained on the matter
before. It seemed as if a good view were no longer to be taken from the
top of an high hill, and that a clear blue sky was no longer a proof of
a fine day. She was heartily ashamed of her ignorance. A misplaced
shame. Where people wish to attach, they should always be ignorant. To
come with a well-informed mind is to come with an inability of
administering to the vanity of others, which a sensible person would
always wish to avoid. A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of
knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.
The advantages of natural folly in a beautiful girl have been already
set forth by the capital pen of a sister author; and to her treatment
of the subject I will only add, in justice to men, that though to the
larger and more trifling part of the sex, imbecility in females is a
great enhancement of their personal charms, there is a portion of them
too reasonable and too well informed themselves to desire anything more
in woman than ignorance. But Catherine did not know her own
advantages—did not know that a good-looking girl, with an affectionate
heart and a very ignorant mind, cannot fail of attracting a clever
young man, unless circumstances are particularly untoward. In the
present instance, she confessed and lamented her want of knowledge,
declared that she would give anything in the world to be able to draw;
and a lecture on the picturesque immediately followed, in which his
instructions were so clear that she soon began to see beauty in
everything admired by him, and her attention was so earnest that he
became perfectly satisfied of her having a great deal of natural taste.
He talked of foregrounds, distances, and second distances—side-screens
and perspectives—lights and shades; and Catherine was so hopeful a
scholar that when they gained the top of Beechen Cliff, she voluntarily
rejected the whole city of Bath as unworthy to make part of a
landscape. Delighted with her progress, and fearful of wearying her
with too much wisdom at once, Henry suffered the subject to decline,
and by an easy transition from a piece of rocky fragment and the
withered oak which he had placed near its summit, to oaks in general,
to forests, the enclosure of them, waste lands, crown lands and
government, he shortly found himself arrived at politics; and from
politics, it was an easy step to silence. The general pause which
succeeded his short disquisition on the state of the nation was put an
end to by Catherine, who, in rather a solemn tone of voice, uttered
these words, “I have heard that something very shocking indeed will
soon come out in London.”
Miss Tilney, to whom this was chiefly addressed, was startled, and
hastily replied, “Indeed! and of what nature?”
“That I do not know, nor who is the author. I have only heard that it
is to be more horrible than anything we have met with yet.”
“Good heaven! where could you hear of such a thing?”
“A particular friend of mine had an account of it in a letter from
London yesterday. It is to be uncommonly dreadful. I shall expect
murder and everything of the kind.”
“You speak with astonishing composure! but I hope your friend’s
accounts have been exaggerated; and if such a design is known
beforehand, proper measures will undoubtedly be taken by government to
prevent its coming to effect.”
“Government,” said Henry, endeavouring not to smile, “neither desires
nor dares to interfere in such matters. There must be murder; and
government cares not how much.”
The ladies stared. He laughed, and added, “Come, shall I make you
understand each other, or leave you to puzzle out an explanation as you
can? No—I will be noble. I will prove myself a man, no less by the
generosity of my soul than the clearness of my head. I have no patience
with such of my sex as disdain to let themselves sometimes down to the
comprehension of yours. Perhaps the abilities of women are neither
sound nor acute—neither vigorous nor keen. Perhaps they may want
observation, discernment, judgment, fire, genius, and wit.”
“Miss Morland, do not mind what he says; but have the goodness to
satisfy me as to this dreadful riot.”
“Riot! what riot?”
“My dear Eleanor, the riot is only in your own brain. The confusion
there is scandalous. Miss Morland has been talking of nothing more
dreadful than a new publication which is shortly to come out, in three
duodecimo volumes, two hundred and seventy-six pages in each, with a
frontispiece to the first, of two tombstones and a lantern—do you
understand? And you, Miss Morland—my stupid sister has mistaken all
your clearest expressions. You talked of expected horrors in London—and
instead of instantly conceiving, as any rational creature would have
done, that such words could relate only to a circulating library, she
immediately pictured to herself a mob of three thousand men assembling
in St. George’s Fields, the Bank attacked, the Tower threatened, the
streets of London flowing with blood, a detachment of the Twelfth Light
Dragoons (the hopes of the nation) called up from Northampton to quell
the insurgents, and the gallant Captain Frederick Tilney, in the moment
of charging at the head of his troop, knocked off his horse by a
brickbat from an upper window. Forgive her stupidity. The fears of the
sister have added to the weakness of the woman; but she is by no means
a simpleton in general.”
Catherine looked grave. “And now, Henry,” said Miss Tilney, “that you
have made us understand each other, you may as well make Miss Morland
understand yourself—unless you mean to have her think you intolerably
rude to your sister, and a great brute in your opinion of women in
general. Miss Morland is not used to your odd ways.”
“I shall be most happy to make her better acquainted with them.”
“No doubt; but that is no explanation of the present.”
“What am I to do?”
“You know what you ought to do. Clear your character handsomely before
her. Tell her that you think very highly of the understanding of
women.”
“Miss Morland, I think very highly of the understanding of all the
women in the world—especially of those—whoever they may be—with whom I
happen to be in company.”
“That is not enough. Be more serious.”
“Miss Morland, no one can think more highly of the understanding of
women than I do. In my opinion, nature has given them so much that they
never find it necessary to use more than half.”
“We shall get nothing more serious from him now, Miss Morland. He is
not in a sober mood. But I do assure you that he must be entirely
misunderstood, if he can ever appear to say an unjust thing of any
woman at all, or an unkind one of me.”
It was no effort to Catherine to believe that Henry Tilney could never
be wrong. His manner might sometimes surprise, but his meaning must
always be just: and what she did not understand, she was almost as
ready to admire, as what she did. The whole walk was delightful, and
though it ended too soon, its conclusion was delightful too; her
friends attended her into the house, and Miss Tilney, before they
parted, addressing herself with respectful form, as much to Mrs. Allen
as to Catherine, petitioned for the pleasure of her company to dinner
on the day after the next. No difficulty was made on Mrs. Allen’s side,
and the only difficulty on Catherine’s was in concealing the excess of
her pleasure.
The morning had passed away so charmingly as to banish all her
friendship and natural affection, for no thought of Isabella or James
had crossed her during their walk. When the Tilneys were gone, she
became amiable again, but she was amiable for some time to little
effect; Mrs. Allen had no intelligence to give that could relieve her
anxiety; she had heard nothing of any of them. Towards the end of the
morning, however, Catherine, having occasion for some indispensable
yard of ribbon which must be bought without a moment’s delay, walked
out into the town, and in Bond Street overtook the second Miss Thorpe
as she was loitering towards Edgar’s Buildings between two of the
sweetest girls in the world, who had been her dear friends all the
morning. From her, she soon learned that the party to Clifton had taken
place. “They set off at eight this morning,” said Miss Anne, “and I am
sure I do not envy them their drive. I think you and I are very well
off to be out of the scrape. It must be the dullest thing in the world,
for there is not a soul at Clifton at this time of year. Belle went
with your brother, and John drove Maria.”
Catherine spoke the pleasure she really felt on hearing this part of
the arrangement.
“Oh! yes,” rejoined the other, “Maria is gone. She was quite wild to
go. She thought it would be something very fine. I cannot say I admire
her taste; and for my part, I was determined from the first not to go,
if they pressed me ever so much.”
Catherine, a little doubtful of this, could not help answering, “I wish
you could have gone too. It is a pity you could not all go.”
“Thank you; but it is quite a matter of indifference to me. Indeed, I
would not have gone on any account. I was saying so to Emily and Sophia