Northanger Abbey quotes

No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be an heroine.

Her situation in life, the character of her father and mother, her own person and disposition, were all equally against her.

she had now the pleasure of sometimes hearing her father and mother remark on her personal improvement. “Catherine grows quite a good-looking girl—she is almost pretty today,” were words which caught her ears now and then; and how welcome were the sounds!

To look almost pretty is an acquisition of higher delight to a girl who has been looking plain the first fifteen years of her life than a beauty from her cradle can ever receive.

Mrs. Morland was a very good woman, and wished to see her children everything they ought to be; but her time was so much occupied in lying-in and teaching the little ones, that her elder daughters were inevitably left to shift for themselves;

There was not one lord in the neighbourhood; no—not even a baronet. There was not one family among their acquaintance who had reared and supported a boy accidentally found at their door—not one young man whose origin was unknown.

Her father had no ward, and the squire of the parish no children.

But when a young lady is to be a heroine, the perverseness of forty surrounding families cannot prevent her. Something must and will happen to throw a hero in her way.

no—not even a baronet. There was not one family among their acquaintance who had reared and supported a boy accidentally found at their door—not one young man whose origin was unknown. Her father had no ward, and the squire of the parish no children.

But when a young lady is to be a heroine, the perverseness of forty surrounding families cannot prevent her. Something must and will happen to throw a hero in her way.

Mr.

Under these unpromising auspices, the parting took place, and the journey began. It was performed with suitable quietness and uneventful safety.

Neither robbers nor tempests befriended them, nor one lucky overturn to introduce them to the hero.

Nothing more alarming occurred than a fear, on Mrs. Allen’s side, of having once left her clogs behind her at an inn, and that fortunately proved to be groundless.

Under these unpromising auspices, the parting took place, and the journey began. It was performed with suitable quietness and uneventful safety. Neither robbers nor tempests befriended them, nor one lucky overturn to introduce them to the hero.

Nothing more alarming occurred than a fear, on Mrs. Allen’s side, of having once left her clogs behind her at an inn, and that fortunately proved to be groundless.

They arrived at Bath. Catherine was all eager delight—her eyes were here, there, everywhere, as they approached its fine and striking environs, and afterwards drove through those streets which conducted them to the hotel. She was come to be happy, and she felt happy already.

… distress of the work, and how she will, probably, contribute to reduce poor Catherine to all the desperate wretchedness of which a last volume is capable—whether by her imprudence, vulgarity, or jealousy—whether by intercepting her letters, ruining her character, or turning her out of doors.

Mrs. Allen was one of that numerous class of females, whose society can raise no other emotion than surprise at there being any men in the world who could like them well enough to marry them.

She had neither beauty, genius, accomplishment, nor manner. The air of a gentlewoman, a great deal of quiet, inactive good temper, and a trifling turn of mind were all that could account for her being the choice of a sensible, intelligent man like Mr. Allen.

“

Perhaps you are not sitting in this room, and I am not sitting by you. These are points in which a doubt is equally possible.

Not keep a journal! How are your absent cousins to understand the tenor of your life in Bath without one? How are the civilities and compliments of every day to be related as they ought to be, unless noted down every evening in a journal?

“

A general deficiency of subject, a total inattention to stops, and a very frequent ignorance of grammar.

”

“

Thank you; for now we shall soon be acquainted, as I am authorized to tease you on this subject whenever we meet, and nothing in the world advances intimacy so much.

”

This question answered, as it readily was, the stranger pronounced hers to be Thorpe; and Mrs. Allen immediately recognized the features of a former schoolfellow and intimate, whom she had seen only once since their respective marriages, and that many years ago.

Their joy on this meeting was very great, as well it might, since they had been contented to know nothing of each other for the last fifteen years.

Compliments on good looks now passed;

Catherine was delighted with this extension of her Bath acquaintance, and almost forgot Mr. Tilney while she talked to Miss Thorpe.

Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.

Their conversation turned upon those subjects, of which the free discussion has generally much to do in perfecting a sudden intimacy between two young ladies: such as dress, balls, flirtations, and quizzes.

never satisfied with the day unless she spent the chief of it by the side of Mrs. Thorpe, in what they called conversation, but in which there was scarcely ever any exchange of opinion, and not often any resemblance of subject, for

Mrs. Thorpe talked chiefly of her children, and Mrs. Allen of her gowns.

The progress of the friendship between Catherine and Isabella was quick as its beginning had been warm, and they passed so rapidly through every gradation of increasing tenderness that there was shortly no fresh proof of it to be given to their friends or themselves.

I cannot approve of it. Let us leave it to the Reviewers to abuse such effusions of fancy at their leisure, and over every new novel to talk in threadbare strains of the trash with which the press now groans.

Let us not desert one another; we are an injured body.

Although our productions have afforded more extensive and unaffected pleasure than those of any other literary corporation in the world, no species of composition has been so much decried. From pride, ignorance, or fashion, our foes are almost as many as our readers.

… of infamy while her heart is all purity, her actions all innocence, and the misconduct of another the true source of her debasement, is one of those circumstances which peculiarly belong to the heroine’s life, and her fortitude under it what particularly dignifies her character.

Catherine had fortitude too; she suffered, but no murmur passed her lips.

From this state of humiliation, she was roused, at the end of ten minutes, to a pleasanter feeling, by seeing, not Mr. Thorpe, but Mr. Tilney, within three yards of the place where they sat;

how little it is biased by the texture of their muslin, and how unsusceptible of peculiar tenderness towards the spotted, the sprigged, the mull, or the jackonet.

Woman is fine for her own satisfaction alone. No man will admire her the more, no woman will like her the better for it.

Neatness and fashion are enough for the former, and a something of shabbiness or impropriety will be most endearing to the latter. But not one of these grave reflections troubled the tranquillity of Catherine.

The morning had answered all her hopes, and the evening of the following day was now the object of expectation, the future good. What gown and what headdress she should wear on the occasion became her chief concern. She cannot be justified in it.

Dress is at all times a frivolous distinction, and excessive solicitude about it often destroys its own aim.

Catherine knew all this very well; her great aunt had read her a lecture on the subject only the Christmas before;

We have entered into a contract of mutual agreeableness for the space of an evening, and all our agreeableness belongs solely to each other for that time. Nobody can fasten themselves on the notice of one, without injuring the rights of the other.

I consider a country-dance as an emblem of marriage.

Fidelity and complaisance are the principal duties of both; and those men who do not choose to dance or marry themselves, have no business with the partners or wives of their neighbours.”

“In one respect, there certainly is a difference.

In marriage, the man is supposed to provide for the support of the woman, the woman to make the home agreeable to the man; he is to purvey, and she is to smile.

But in dancing, their duties are exactly changed; the agreeableness, the compliance are expected from him, while she furnishes the fan and the lavender water. That, I suppose, was the difference of duties which struck you, as rendering the conditions incapable of comparison.”

I called out to him as soon as ever I saw you; now, Mrs. Allen, did not—Oh! you were not there; but indeed I did; and, if Mr. Thorpe would only have stopped, I would have jumped out and run after you.”

Is there a Henry in the world who could be insensible to such a declaration?

Henry Tilney at least was not. With a yet sweeter smile, he said everything that need be said of his sister’s concern, regret, and dependence on Catherine’s honour. “Oh, do not say Miss Tilney was not angry,” cried Catherine, “because I know she was;

“She is as obstinate as—”

Thorpe never finished the simile, for it could hardly have been a proper one.

Away walked Catherine in great agitation, as fast as the crowd would permit her, fearful of being pursued, yet determined to persevere. As she walked, she reflected on what had passed.

“

The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.

I have read all Mrs. Radcliffe’s works, and most of them with great pleasure. The Mysteries of Udolpho, when I had once begun it, I could not lay down again; I remember finishing it in two days—my hair standing on end the whole time.”

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;

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.

“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.

”

“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.

”

Henry smiled, and said, “

How very little trouble it can give you to understand the motive of other people’s actions.

”

“

Me? yes; I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible.

”

“It is as much as should be said of anyone.

To be always firm must be to be often obstinate.

When properly to relax is the trial of judgment; and, without reference to my brother, I really think Miss Thorpe has by no means chosen ill in fixing on the present hour.”

She was to be their chosen visitor, she was to be for weeks under the same roof with the person whose society she mostly prized—and, in addition to all the rest, this roof was to be the roof of an abbey!

Her passion for ancient edifices was next in degree to her passion for Henry Tilney

—and castles and abbeys made usually the charm of those reveries which his image did not fill.

The power of early habit only could account for it. A distinction to which they had been born gave no pride.

Their superiority of abode was no more to them than their superiority of person.

Many were the inquiries she was eager to make of Miss Tilney;

“I think Mr. Morland would acknowledge a difference.

No man is offended by another man’s admiration of the woman he loves; it is the woman only who can make it a torment.

”

“

It is probable that she will neither love so well, nor flirt so well, as she might do either singly. The gentlemen must each give up a little.

”

His leave of absence will soon expire, and he must return to his regiment. And what will then be their acquaintance?

The messroom will drink Isabella Thorpe for a fortnight, and she will laugh with your brother over poor Tilney’s passion for a month.

”

so different from the only gentleman-coachman whom it was in her power to compare him with! And then his hat sat so well, and the innumerable capes of his greatcoat looked so becomingly important!

To be driven by him, next to being dancing with him, was certainly the greatest happiness in the world.

In addition to every other delight, she had now that of listening to her own praise; of being thanked at least, on his sister’s account, for her kindness in thus becoming her visitor;

… and had even passed on to the hall, where her friend and the General were waiting to welcome her, without feeling one awful foreboding of future misery to herself, or one moment’s suspicion of any past scenes of horror being acted within the solemn edifice.

The breeze had not seemed to waft the sighs of the murdered to her; it had wafted nothing worse than a thick mizzling rain

; and having given a good shake to her habit, she was ready to be shown into the common drawing room, and capable of considering where she was.

it had yet some hours to burn; and that she might not have any greater difficulty in distinguishing the writing than what its ancient date might occasion, she hastily snuffed it. Alas! it was snuffed and extinguished in one.

A lamp could not have expired with more awful effect.

Catherine, for a few moments, was motionless with horror. It was done completely; not a remnant of light in the wick could give hope to the rekindling breath. Darkness impenetrable and immovable filled the room.

Her greedy eye glanced rapidly over a page. She started at its import. Could it be possible, or did not her senses play her false? An inventory of linen, in coarse and modern characters, seemed all that was before her!

If the evidence of sight might be trusted, she held a washing-bill in her hand.

She seized another sheet, and saw the same articles with little variation; a third, a fourth, and a fifth presented nothing new. Shirts, stockings, cravats, and waistcoats faced her in each.

“At any rate, however, I am pleased that you have learnt to love a hyacinth.

The mere habit of learning to love is the thing; and a teachableness of disposition in a young lady is a great blessing.

Has my sister a pleasant mode of instruction?”

“If I understand you rightly, you had formed a surmise of such horror as I have hardly words to—Dear Miss Morland, consider the dreadful nature of the suspicions you have entertained. What have you been judging from?

Remember the country and the age in which we live. Remember that we are English, that we are Christians.

Consult your own understanding, your own sense of the probable, your own observation of what is passing around you. Does our education prepare us for such atrocities? Do our laws connive at them?

But in the central part of England there was surely some security for the existence even of a wife not beloved, in the laws of the land, and the manners of the age.

Murder was not tolerated, servants were not slaves, and neither poison nor sleeping potions to be procured, like rhubarb, from every druggist.

Among the Alps and Pyrenees, perhaps, there were no mixed characters. There, such as were not as spotless as an angel might have the dispositions of a fiend. But in England it was not so;

She must think me an idiot, or she could not have written so; but perhaps this has served to make her character better known to me than mine is to her. I see what she has been about.

She is a vain coquette, and her tricks have not answered.

I do not believe she had ever any regard either for James or for me, and I wish I had never known her.”

But my affair is widely different; I bring back my heroine to her home in solitude and disgrace; and no sweet elation of spirits can lead me into minuteness.

A heroine in a hack post chaise is such a blow upon sentiment, as no attempt at grandeur or pathos can withstand.

Swiftly therefore shall her postboy drive through the village, amid the gaze of Sunday groups, and speedy shall be her descent from it.

and though, when they all met the next morning, her recovery was not equal to their hopes, they were still perfectly unsuspicious of there being any deeper evil.

They never once thought of her heart, which, for the parents of a young lady of seventeen, just returned from her first excursion from home, was odd enough!

As soon as breakfast was over, she sat down to fulfil her promise to Miss Tilney, whose trust in the effect of time and distance on her friend’s disposition was already justified, for already did Catherine reproach herself with having parted from Eleanor coldly, with …

and Mrs. Allen, and the very little consideration which the neglect or unkindness of slight acquaintance like the Tilneys ought to have with her, while she could preserve the good opinion and affection of her earliest friends.

There was a great deal of good sense in all this; but there are some situations of the human mind in which good sense has very little power

; and Catherine’s feelings contradicted almost every position her mother advanced. It was upon the behaviour of these very slight acquaintance that all her present happiness depended; and while Mrs.