NORTHANGER ABBEY, Twitter Version, Chapters 13-14

When last we left Catherine, she was "one of the happiest creatures in the world," having assured Henry Tilney that nothing less than being abducted by the evil John Thorpe could have prevented her from keeping her engagement of going for a country walk with Henry and his sister Eleanor.

 

[JJ Feild and Felicity Jones in the 2007 film adaptation of Jane Austen's NORTHANGER ABBEY]

CHAPTER 13: 

James & the Thorpes try to guilt Catherine into another excursion, but she refuses: She's made plans with Eleanor.

James calls Catherine unkind and obstinate. " If I am wrong," she says, "I am doing what I believe to be right."

"I suspect," says Isabella, "there is no great struggle." Ouch. Poor Catherine.

It gets worse: Thorpe announces he has cancelled Catherine's plans with Eleanor. WTF? Off Catherine goes to set things straight.

Her parting words: "If I could not be persuaded into doing what I thought wrong, I never will be tricked into it."

Bypassing the Tilneys' servant, Catherine rushes into their drawing room and breathlessly explains what happened.

All is forgiven; she even meets Henry's father, General Tilney, who walks her to the door & admires "the elasticity of her walk."

"Catherine…proceeded gaily" home, "walking, as she concluded, with great elasticity, though she had never thought of it before."

CHAPTER 14:

Walking next day w/Tilneys, Catherine talks of her love for gothic novels. "But you never read novels…?" she asks Henry.

Henry: "Why not?" Catherine: "Because they are not clever enough for you -- gentlemen read better books."

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

Catherine: "But I really thought before, young men despised novels amazingly."

Henry: "…it may well suggest amazement if they do -- for they read nearly as many as women."

Catherine: "Do not you think Udolpho the nicest book in the world?"

Henry: "The nicest; --by which I suppose you mean the neatest. That must depend upon the binding."

"Henry," said Miss Tilney, "you are very impertinent. Miss Morland, …The word `nicest,' as you used it, did not suit him…"

"I am sure," cried Catherine, "I did not mean to say any thing wrong; but it is a nice book, and why should not I call it so?"

"Very true," said Henry, "and this is a very nice day, and we are taking a very nice walk, and you are two very nice young ladies."

Henry: "Oh! it is a very nice word indeed! -- It does for every thing…every commendation on every subject is comprised in that one word."

"While, in fact," cried his sister, "it ought only to be applied to you, without any commendation at all."

"Come, Miss Morland, let us leave him to meditate over our faults…, while we praise Udolpho in whatever terms we like best."

Talk turns 2 history. Cath: "I read it a little as a duty, but it tells me nothing that does not either vex or weary me."

"The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars or pestilences, in every page…"

"...the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all -- it is very tiresome…"

"…yet I often think it odd that it should be so dull, for a great deal of it must be invention."

And as for historians: "to be at so much trouble in filling great volumes, which...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…"

Henry disagrees, for historians "are perfectly well qualified to torment readers of the most advanced reason and mature time of life."

The Tilneys began talking about drawing, and "Here Catherine was quite lost. She knew nothing of drawing."

"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."

And "an inability of administering to the vanity of others" is something "which a sensible person would always wish to avoid."

"A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing any thing, should conceal it as well as she can."

"To the larger and more trifling part of the [male] sex, imbecility in females is a great enhancement of their personal charms…"

However, "there is a portion of [men] too reasonable and too well informed themselves to desire anything more in woman than ignorance."

"But Catherine did not know her own advantages."

For "a good-looking girl, with an affectionate heart and a very ignorant mind, cannot fail of attracting a clever young man."

A lecture on drawing follows. From there, Henry segues to politics. And "From politics, it was an easy step to silence."

Then Catherine offers this comment on current affairs. "I have heard that something very shocking indeed will soon come out in London."

Eleanor is alarmed; Henry amused. Says Catherine: "I shall expect murder and everything of the kind."

Eleanor says that the government will of course take matters in hand. Henry, "endeavoring not to smile," disagrees.

"Government…neither desires nor dares to interfere in such matters. There must be murder; and government cares not how much."

"The ladies stared. He laughed… 'Come, shall I make you understand each other, or leave you to puzzle out an explanation as you can?'"

Henry: "Miss Morland has been talking of nothing more dreadful than a new publication," i.e., a gothic horror novel.

Henry: "Miss Morland -- my stupid sister has mistaken all your clearest expressions…but she is by no means a simpleton in general."

Eleanor warns that Catherine will think Henry "intolerably rude" 2 his sister "and a great brute in [his] opinion of women in general."

Eleanor: "Miss Morland is not used to your odd ways." Henry: "I shall be most happy to make her better acquainted with them."

Henry: "Miss Morland, no one can think more highly of the understanding of women than I do."

Henry: "In my opinion, nature has given [women] so much that they never find it necessary to use more than half."

Eleanor: "We shall get nothing more serious from him now, Miss Morland. He is not in a sober mood."

Eleanor: "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."

Eleanor needn't have worried, for "it was no effort to Catherine to believe that Henry Tilney could never be wrong."  

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