Jane Austen and her works

or to that valuable warning in wooing—

If all girls were as quickly captivated as Catherine Morland, what would become of the wooing—the pursuit—the probation, during which Elizabeth Barrett Browning asserts a man may be content to be treated “worse than dog or mouse” when it is but the prelude to the girl’s becoming his for ever?

Catherine, in her extreme candour, persists that Miss Tilney must have been angry, since she was in the house, but would not see her—Catherine—when she called.

In Henry Tilney’s hasty explanation that it was his father—there was nothing in it, beyond the circumstance that General Tilney wished his daughter to walk out with him, and could not be kept waiting—we have the first hint that General Tilney has “ways.” He is, for that matter, an extremely tyrannical old gentleman.

Catherine has her walk, and for once the reality fulfils the expectation.

Whether intentionally or accidentally, Jane Austen illustrates the contrast between John Thorpe and Henry Tilney by their different estimates of novels. The walking-party had determined to walk round Beechen Cliff—“that noble hill,” Jane Austen calls it, in more than her ordinary chary words of description, “whose beautiful verdure and hanging coppice[29] render it so striking an object from almost every opening in Bath.”

“‘I never look at it,’ said Catherine, as they walked along the side of the river, ‘without thinking of the south of France.’

“‘You have been abroad then?’ said Henry, a little surprised.

“‘Oh, no; I only mean what I have read about. It always puts me in mind of the country that Emily and her father travelled through in the ‘Mysteries of Udolpho.’ But you never read novels, I dare say.’

“‘Why not?’

“‘Because they are not clever enough for you; gentlemen read better books.’

“‘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.’

“‘Yes,’ added Miss Tilney; ‘and I remember that you undertook to read it aloud to me; and that when I was called away for only five minutes to answer a note, instead of waiting for me, you took the volume into the Hermitage Walk; and I was obliged to stay till you had finished it.’[30]

“‘But I really thought before,’ persisted Catherine, ‘young men despised novels amazingly?’

“‘It is amazingly; it may well suggest amazement, if they do, for they read nearly as many as women. I myself have read hundreds and hundreds. Do not imagine that you can cope with me in a knowledge of Julias and Louisas. If we proceed to particulars, and engage in the never-ceasing inquiry of ‘Have you read this?’ or ‘Have you read that?’ I shall soon leave you as far behind me as—what shall I say? I want an appropriate simile—as far as your friend Emily herself left poor Valancourt, when she went with her aunt into Italy. Consider how many years I have had the start of you. I had entered on my studies at Oxford while you were a good little girl, working your sampler at home.’”

About this time Captain Tilney, General Tilney’s eldest son, a handsome, fashionable young man, arrives on a visit to his family. Catherine is most willing to acknowledge his advantages, but his tastes and manners are decidedly inferior, in her opinion, after she hears him, at one of the assemblies, not only protest against every thought of dancing himself, but even laugh openly at his brother Henry for finding it possible.

Isabella, who has begun by announcing her intention to sit all the evening, in compliment to James Morland’s temporary absence, is soon seen dancing with Captain Tilney, in spite of his and her protest.

James Morland’s application to his father for his consent to his marriage with Isabella Thorpe brings a kind and considerate answer. A family living of four hundred a year is to be resigned to James; an estate of nearly equal value is secured to him. The greatest trial is that the young couple must wait two or three years, till James Morland can take orders.

James and Catherine, being good and reasonable children, are perfectly satisfied with their father’s generosity.

Isabella says the prospect is very charming, but says it with a grave face.

The period of the Allens’ visit to Bath is drawing to a close; and the question whether they may stay longer or not seems to involve the happiness of Catherine’s whole life; and so, when the lodgings are taken for another fortnight, everything appears secured. “What this additional fortnight was to produce to her beyond the pleasure of sometimes seeing Henry Tilney, made but a small part of Catherine’s speculation;” Jane Austen comments with regard to her heroine’s unreasonable joy. “Once or twice, indeed, since James’s engagement had taught her what could be done, she had got so far as to indulge in a secret ‘perhaps;’ but, in general, the felicity of being with him for the present bounded her views. The present was now comprised in another three weeks; and her happiness being certain for that period, the rest of her life was at such a distance as to excite but little interest.” This is pre-eminently the calculation of seventeen, when a month in anticipation reckons as a year, a year as a lifetime.

However, when Catherine calls for Miss Tilney with the glad news, she receives an unexpected blow. The Tilneys are to quit Bath soon. Poor Catherine cannot hide her dejection, but an ample compensation, far beyond her brightest hopes, awaits her.

Miss Tilney stammers some words of invitation, which are at once seconded by her father. The General, so far from being haughty to Catherine, has distinguished her by an oppressively marked degree of attention, which has rather a tendency to extinguish the frank kindness of his son and daughter.

Catherine is now pressed in the most flatteringly solicitous manner, by this somewhat overpowering fine gentleman, to go with the family to Northanger Abbey, and give his daughter the pleasure of her company there, for a few weeks.

Catherine is to be the Tilneys’ chosen visitor: “She was to be for weeks under the same roof with the person whose society she most 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. To see and explore either the ramparts and keep of the one, or the cloisters of the other, had been for many weeks a darling wish, though to be more than the visitor of an hour had seemed too nearly impossible for desire; and yet this was to happen. With all the chances against her of house, hall, place, court and cottage, Northanger turned up an Abbey, and she was to be its inhabitant. Its long damp passages, its narrow cells and ruined chapel, were to be within her daily reach; and she could not entirely subdue the hope of some traditional legends, some awful memorials of an injured and ill-fated nun.”

Catherine’s happiness is not without alloy. Isabella improves the occasion of being with Catherine at the Pump-room one morning, to tell her that John Thorpe is over head and ears in love with her, and to urge his suit, greatly to Catherine’s astonishment and discomfiture. For has not Isabella long professed herself convinced of a mutual attachment between Henry Tilney and her friend?

Catherine, with all the innocence of truth, protests her ignorance of Mr. Thorpe’s wishes, and her incapacity to respond to them.

Isabella accepts her brother’s disappointment with a wonderfully good grace, though she will imply, in spite of Catherine’s indignant denial, that there has been a relinquished flirtation, a change of mind on Catherine’s part, which Isabella would be the last person to blame.

As the girls are speaking, they are joined by Captain Tilney, and Catherine is first bewildered and then shocked to find him addressing her friend and future sister in terms which cannot be mistaken. “‘What! always to be watched in person or proxy?’ he said low, but not too low for Catherine to hear.

“‘Pshaw! nonsense!’ was Isabella’s answer, in the same half-whisper; ‘why do you put such things into my head? If I could believe it! my spirit, you know, is pretty independent.’

“‘I wish your heart were independent, that would be enough for me.’

“‘My heart, indeed! What can you have to do with hearts? You men have none of you any hearts.’

“‘If we have not hearts we have eyes, and they give us torment enough.’

“‘Do they? I am sorry for it; I am sorry they find anything so disagreeable in me. I will look another way. I hope this pleases you’ (turning her back on him). ‘I hope your eyes are not tormented now.’

“‘Never more so, for the edge of a blooming cheek is still in view, at once too much and too little.’”

Catherine will not remain longer. She is confounded; but still the girl who is so honourable herself can think no greater evil than that Captain Tilney has fallen in love with Isabella, and that Isabella is unconsciously encouraging him—unconsciously it must be, for Isabella’s attachment to James is as certain as their engagement.

But when Catherine sees Isabella admitting Captain Tilney’s attentions in public as readily as they are offered, and allowing him almost an equal share with James of her notice and smiles, charity itself cannot vindicate the lady’s conduct.

Catherine has too much good sense to continue to be deceived. She tries to believe still that Isabella cannot be aware of the pain she is inflicting; but her friend must resent the wilful thoughtlessness, since James is the sufferer.

When Catherine Morland learns that Captain Tilney is to remain in Bath after his family have left, she speaks to Henry Tilney on the subject. She expresses her regret for his brother’s evident admiration of Miss Thorpe, and entreats him to make known her engagement.

“‘My brother does know it.’

“‘Does he? Then why does he stay here?’

“He made no reply, and was beginning to talk of something else; but she eagerly continued, ‘Why do not you persuade him to go away? The longer he stays the worse it will be for him at last. It is only staying to be miserable.’

“Henry smiled, and said, ‘I am sure my brother would not wish to do that.’

“‘Then you will persuade him to go away?’

“‘Persuasion is not at command; but pardon me if I cannot even endeavour to persuade him. I have myself told him that Miss Thorpe is engaged. He knows what he is about, and must be his own master.’

“‘No, he does not know what he is about,’ cried Catherine; ‘he does not know the pain he is giving my brother. Not that James has ever told me so, but I am sure he is very uncomfortable.’

“‘And are you sure it is my brother’s doing?’

“‘Yes, very sure.’

“‘Is it my brother’s attentions to Miss Thorpe, or Miss Thorpe’s admission of them, that gives the pain?’”

Catherine, in her ignorance of the ways of the world, wonders General Tilney does not interfere; is sure if he spoke to Captain Tilney he would go away.

Henry Tilney has some trouble in convincing her that her “amiable solicitude” is a little mistaken. Will her brother thank her, either on his own account or on that of Miss Thorpe, for supposing that her affection, or at least her good behaviour, can only be secured by her seeing nothing of Captain Tilney? For anything further, Frederick must soon rejoin his regiment, and what will then become of his acquaintance with Miss Thorpe? The mess-room will drink “Isabella Thorpe” for a fortnight, and she will laugh with Catherine’s brother over poor Tilney’s passion for a month.

This is a novel view of the situation to Catherine, but she cannot refuse comfort from such a quarter; and she parts not only placably but affectionately from her friend.

III.

The bustle of the Tilneys starting on their journey is rendered trying by the exactions and complaints of the arrogant, ill-tempered master of the household; still he is all complaisance and sedulous politeness to Miss Morland; and his first fretful murmur at the chaise’s being overcrowded with parcels, is professedly that she will not have room to sit. “And so much was he influenced by this apprehension when he handed her in, that she had some difficulty in saving her own new writing-desk from being thrown out into the street.”

Luckily, the General drives in his son’s curricle; but even the agreeable conversation of Eleanor Tilney, the bliss of their destination, the glory of travelling in “a fashionable chaise and four, postilions handsomely liveried, rising so regularly in their stirrups, and numerous outriders properly mounted,”[31] sink a little under the tediousness of a two hours’ bait at Petty France.

The General, in his anxiety that Catherine may see the country, proposes to her to change places, and drive with his son for the rest of the way.

Catherine’s recent experiences of such driving have not been encouraging, and she recalls an unfavourable opinion delivered too late by Mr. Allen, on the presence of young ladies in young men’s open carriages. For I am glad to be able to show that Catherine, though extremely in love, has neither forgotten duty nor propriety in her love; but backed by the powerful sanction, even the recommendation, of such a judge of good manners as General Tilney, she feels she need have no scruple in giving the consent she longs to give.

Henry Tilney is as far removed from John Thorpe in driving as in everything else. The young clergyman drives so well, so quietly, without making any disturbance, without parading to her, or swearing at the horses, “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 great-coat looked so becomingly important.[32] To be driven by him was, next to dancing with him, 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, of hearing it ranked as real friendship and described as creating real gratitude.”

It is a little drawback, certainly, to hear that Henry Tilney has an establishment at his parsonage at Woodston, nearly twenty miles off, where he has to spend some of his time,[33] but what pleasure under the sun is without drawback?

Unfortunately, too, as it proves, Henry Tilney, with his propensity for chaffing, cannot resist making game of his companion with regard to her expectations of Northanger Abbey. He conjures up for her benefit a fac-simile of the abbeys and castles of her beloved romances, and pictures her like Emily in “Udolpho”—conducted by an ancient housekeeper along gloomy passages—standing by a bed with its dark velvet coverlet resembling a pall—inspecting broken lutes and cabinets of ebony, while peals of thunder rattle overhead, and the flame of her lamp sinks in the socket just as she has been impelled to unlock the folding-doors and search through every drawer of the cabinet, and has come upon a roll of manuscript.

In short, Jane Austen, speaking by Henry Tilney, in the most barefaced and liveliest manner, parodies and makes fun of Mrs. Radcliffe’s romances, which she has praised so highly elsewhere;[34] and this example of the humourist’s satire shows how free it is ordinarily from illiberality and harshness. She laughs merrily here at what she really esteems, the merits of which in another light she is the first to acknowledge.

It is not in a thunderstorm, but under the more prosaic inconvenience of “a scud of rain,” fixing all Catherine’s attention on the welfare of her new straw bonnet, that she arrives at her destination, with only a dim apprehension—from the modern lodge-gates, the smooth gravel of the avenue, and the Rumford grate and ornaments of pretty English china on the chimney-piece of the drawing-room, to which she is hurried—that the Abbey, in one sense, may not come up to her dreams.

The hall has been large and lofty, and there is a broad staircase of shining oak, up which Catherine is taken to her room. But that comfortable room possesses papered walls and a carpeted floor, while the windows are neither less perfect nor dimmer[35] than those of the drawing-room.

Catherine receives some consolation, as she is hastening to remove her riding-habit (the common travelling dress of the day), to dress for dinner, in time to suit the fiery punctuality of the General. Her eye falls on a large, high chest in a deep recess on one side of the fireplace. The chest, which is of cedar, curiously inlaid with some darker wood, and furnished with a tarnished silver lock, might have formed a treasure among the Queen Anne furniture and art curiosities of to-day; but it is not from premature æsthetic tastes that Catherine flies to it, entranced at the sight—it is because the chest looks like a realisation of her visions, a prelude to adventures in her own person, such as those which her favourite heroines have encountered and surmounted triumphantly.

The incidents which follow the discovery of this chest would be impossible in the days of social science and board schools. They read like exaggerations, even in Jane Austen’s usually temperate, as well as witty, pages.[36]

Then we must keep in remembrance that Catherine Morland was, in age, but sweet, immature seventeen, while George III’s reign was in many things removed from that of Queen Victoria.

Miss Tilney’s maid, and later Miss Tilney herself, surprise Catherine in what looks like burglarious intentions, in her eager investigation of the chest. In the last instance, Catherine has just succeeded in throwing back the lid, and discovering——a nicely-folded white cotton counterpane!

This anti-climax does not prevent the infatuated Catherine, when she has retired for the night, during an appropriate storm of wind and rain, looking about her, at intervals, in pursuit of more old furniture. And just as she is about to step into bed, her eyes light on an ebony and gold cabinet, such as her mischievous lover has described. To be sure the cabinet is not exactly of ebony and gold, but it is of the next thing to them—black and yellow Japan—with the yellow looking like gold. The key is in the door—wonderful to relate, as Henry has said! Catherine cannot sleep till she has turned it. Naturally, the lock tries her trembling, unfamiliar fingers, but she overcomes its difficulties, only to open drawer after drawer with emptiness revealed. The middle cavity alone remains unexplored. She succeeds with the second lock as with the first, and meets her reward—a roll of paper, pushed far back for concealment, lies before her.

Catherine’s heart flutters, her knees tremble, her cheeks grow pale. She seizes the precious MS. without a doubt as to her right to take possession of it. Has one of her heroines hesitated in similar circumstances? She glances round, as if by instinct, to detect the next accomplishment of Henry Tilney’s predictions, in the waning of her light. It happens to be a half-burnt-down candle needing snuffing, instead of a lamp with the wick burnt to the socket. Sometimes modern prosaic substitutes prove convenient. Catherine has only to snuff her candle to restore its brightness. Alas! in her agitation she snuffs it out, and leaves herself at once in total darkness. Gas might not have served her any better, since gas runs the risk, in these circumstances, of being turned off.

Poor Catherine’s plight has become lamentable, since, as a matter of course, she believes she distinguishes receding footsteps, and the closing of a distant door, the moment she has put out her light. A cold sweat stands on her forehead, the manuscript falls from her hand, and, groping her way to the bed, she jumps in, seeking some suspension of agony by creeping unheroically far underneath the clothes. Sleep must be impossible, and actually eludes Catherine’s grasp till all the clocks about the place have struck three.

The housemaid’s folding back her window-shutters at eight o’clock rouses Catherine to a bright morning and a cheerful fire. With revived spirits and curiosity, she waits only to be alone, in order to surrender herself to the absorbing interest and distinction of her discovery. She sees at once she must not expect a manuscript of equal length to those she is accustomed to read when printed. Here are only some small, unconnected sheets of paper. “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. Two others, penned by the same hand, marked an expenditure scarcely more interesting in letters, hair-powder, shoe-strings, and breeches ball; and the larger sheet, which had enclosed the rest, seemed by its first cramped line—‘To poultice chesnut mare’—a farrier’s bill! Such was the collection of papers (left, perhaps, as she could then suppose, by the negligence of a servant, in the place whence she had taken them) which had filled her with expectation and alarm, and had robbed her of half her night’s rest! She felt humbled to the dust.”

Catherine fervently trusts that nobody—above all, not Henry Tilney, who is in some respects the originator of her misadventure, but whom, of course, she magnanimously forgives—will ever learn what she has been about.

She soon forgets her affronted discomfiture in a little conversation with Henry Tilney, in the breakfast-parlour, before the others come down. She is praising Miss Tilney’s hyacinths, and adds, “I have just learnt to love a hyacinth.”

“And how might you learn? By accident, or argument?”

“Your sister taught me: I cannot tell how. Mrs. Allen used to take pains, year after year, to make me like them; but I never could, till I saw them, the other day, in Milsom Street. I am naturally indifferent about flowers.”[37]

Henry Tilney ends the conversation with the assertion, “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?”

I need not quote further than that Catherine is delightfully embarrassed, and that she has the happiness of being still more discomposed by a hint from the General when he appears, which does sound as if the formidable great man were deigning to rally the young couple on a sympathetic habit of early rising.

But Catherine is not yet quite cured of her romantic fancies.[38] She has been forced to see that the Abbey, in spite of its indisputable pretensions to antiquity and grandeur, its fine situation, and the ostentatious display made by the present owner of his rank and fortune, in its gardens and hot-houses, is, according to her standard, a mere commonplace, handsome, country house. She has found out for herself that old chests and cabinets may be no better than humbugs; still, she must hanker after family secrets and terrible mysteries. She cannot like pompous, despotic General Tilney, before whom his daughter trembles, and his sons grow silent—let him be ever so grandly polite to herself—not even though he seems to imply his gracious approbation, before it is asked, of his son Henry’s suit, with the General’s earnest desire that Catherine may accede to that suit.

Perverse Catherine takes it into her head that the General interferes to prevent her from being shown over the Abbey, and that he avoids certain parts of the grounds. Her rampant, over-stimulated imagination leaps to the conclusion, on the customary grounds, that these suspicions peculiarities have to do with General Tilney’s late wife, of whom her husband never speaks, who has died rather suddenly, during her daughter’s absence from home.

Has Mrs. Tilney died a natural death? Catherine begins to question herself quakingly; or is she dead at all? Can her children have been imposed upon? May she not be secluded and imprisoned in some remote turret or dungeon, to serve an unknown purpose of her unworthy husband? In that case, Catherine must be destined to restore the unfortunate Mrs. Tilney to her children and the world.[39]

Catherine considers that she has a strong confirmation of her worst fears in what she is told of the General’s habits of sitting up late, and walking up and down his room at night.

Before taking it upon her to act the part of a private detective in any more original or offensive manner, Catherine sets out one evening to enter secretly the closed room which Eleanor has pointed out to her as that in which her mother died.

Catherine goes into the Bluebeard chamber—which is certainly not kept locked—on tiptoe. “She beheld what fixed her to the spot, and agitated every feature. She saw a large, well-proportioned apartment, a handsome dimity bed unoccupied, arranged with a housemaid’s care, a bright Bath stove, mahogany wardrobes and neatly-painted chairs, on which the warm beams of a western sun gaily poured through two sash-windows. Catherine had expected to have her feelings worked upon, and worked upon they were. Astonishment and doubt first seized them, and a shortly-succeeding ray of common sense added some bitter emotions of shame.”

She is endeavouring to retreat as quickly as she has come. She has got as far as the gallery, when she hears footsteps approaching. It would be awkward for a servant, it would be dreadful for the General to meet her prowling about there.

Happily for Catherine, though she cannot think so at the time, it is Henry Tilney who comes running up the side stair.

“‘Mr. Tilney,’ she cries, taken by surprise, ‘how did you come here?’

“‘How did I come up that staircase?’ he echoes, as much astonished as she is; ‘because it is my nearest way from the stable-yard to my own chamber; and why should I not come up it?’

“Catherine recollected herself, blushed deeply, and could say no more. He seemed to be looking in her countenance for that explanation which her words did not afford. She moved on towards the gallery.

“‘And may I not, in my turn,’ said he, as he pushed back the folding doors, ‘ask how came you here? This passage is at least as extraordinary a road from the breakfast-parlour to your apartment as that staircase can be from the stables to mine.’

“‘I have been,’ said Catherine, looking down, ‘to see your mother’s room.’

“‘My mother’s room! Is there anything extraordinary to be seen there?’

“‘No, nothing at all. I thought you did not mean to come back till to-morrow.’”

But he will not be put off the subject, and a few more skilful questions enlighten him with regard to her preposterously uncharitable surmises. Though Henry Tilney is the gay deceiver who has played on her imagination not so long ago, he is considerably scandalised at the length to which she has gone. After gravely explaining to her all the simple, natural circumstances of his mother’s illness and death, and of his father’s sincere affliction for his loss—since, though his temper may have injured her in life, his judgment never did—the son takes Catherine to task very earnestly, if tenderly, for her most unwarrantable flights of fancy. “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.”

Catherine is punished. In the retirement of her own room she cries bitterly. She hates herself for her folly, and becomes a more reasonable woman for all time to come.[40]

IV.

Catherine is recalled from her compunction and mortification, which unquestionably Henry Tilney soothes to the best of his power, by the trials of real life. After nine successive mornings of looking in vain for letters, Catherine receives one from James at Oxford. It is a short, manly letter, full of pain, but full also of self-command and forbearance, announcing the breaking off of his engagement with Miss Thorpe, and hoping, for his sister’s sake, that her visit to Northanger Abbey may be over before Captain Tilney makes known his engagement.

Catherine cannot conceal her sorrow for James, and is soon induced to tell what will not remain long concealed to her sympathising friends, Eleanor and Henry Tilney. Isabella Thorpe has given up Catherine’s brother, and is to marry theirs. Both her listeners—Henry Tilney especially—are full of pity for Catherine’s wondering sorrow that such fickleness and everything which is bad can exist in the world and make her brother James their victim; but the Tilneys doubt that part of her information which relates to their brother. They do not dispute Frederick’s share in the lovers’ quarrel, but they are exceedingly sceptical with regard to Frederick’s marrying Isabella Thorpe—a lawyer’s daughter without any portion. Henry’s incredulity is only shaken by the recollection of Frederick’s former pretensions and confidence in himself, and by the fact that he, Henry, has too good an opinion of Miss Thorpe’s prudence to suppose that she would part with one gentleman before another was secured.

Henry Tilney’s humour asserts itself, as usual, through his vexation. He begs Eleanor to prepare for a sister-in-law open and guileless as the day. He heartily endorses Catherine’s innocent argument—intended to be consolatory—that, perhaps, though Isabella has behaved so badly to the Morland family, she may behave better to the Tilneys—she may be constant to Captain Tilney.

“‘Indeed, I am afraid she will,’ replied Henry Tilney, ‘unless a baronet should come in her way; that is Frederick’s only chance. I will get the Bath paper and look over the arrivals.’

“‘You think it is all for ambition, then?’ inquired Catherine, at length beginning to see there were some things which looked very like it. ‘I never was so deceived in any one’s character in my life.’

“‘Among all the great variety you have known and studied,’ Henry Tilney cannot resist saying.” And really the masterful young lover makes game of his simple mistress so habitually, that one is tempted to imagine he is purposely testing the sweetness of her temper, and her freedom from pride and vanity.

He is soon rallying her on the loss which she herself has sustained. Society must have become irksome—the very idea of such amusements as she has shared with Isabella Thorpe cannot but prove abhorrent to her. Catherine would not now, for instance, go to a ball for the world. She must feel that she has no longer any friend to whom she can speak without reserve, on whose regard she can depend.

But Catherine answers him very sensibly, and with a charming sincerity that disarms his mocking mood. “No,” said Catherine, “ought I? To say the truth, though I am hurt and grieved that I cannot still love her, that I am never to hear from her, perhaps never to see her again, I do not feel so very much afflicted as one would have thought.”

“You feel as you always do, what is most to the credit of human nature. Such feelings ought to be investigated, that they may know themselves.”

We can easily understand how Catherine’s spirits revive under this conversation.

The happiest episode of Catherine’s visit to Northanger Abbey is her going with the Tilneys—the idea of the visit having originated with the General—to “eat their mutton” with Henry in his parsonage at Woodston. An abbey has become no more to Catherine than any other building. There is nothing now so alluring to her imagination as the unpretending comfort of a “well-connected parsonage”—something like Catherine’s home at Fullerton, but better. Fullerton has its faults, but Woodston probably has none.

Before the visit, it has seemed to Catherine that the Wednesday when she is to go to Woodston will never come. She dreads the arrival in the meantime of Captain Tilney to ask his father’s consent to his marriage. But no Captain Tilney makes his appearance, and all goes well. The day comes, proves fine, and Catherine treads on air. “By ten o’clock the chaise and four conveyed the party from the Abbey, and after an agreeable drive of almost twenty miles they entered Woodston, a large and populous village in a situation not unpleasant. Catherine was ashamed to say how pretty she thought it, as the General seemed to think an apology necessary for the flatness of the country and size of the village; but in her heart she preferred it to any place she had ever been at, and looked with great admiration at every neat house above the rank of a cottage, and at all the little chandler’s shops which they passed. At the farther end of the village, and tolerably disengaged from the rest of it, stood the parsonage, a new-built, substantial, stone house, with its semi-circular sweep and green gates; and as they drove up to the door, Henry, with the friends of his solitude—a large Newfoundland puppy and two or three terriers—was ready to receive and make much of them.”

The General’s hints and allusions, with his requests for Catherine’s opinion and approval, which now become more conspicuous and significant than ever, may be embarrassing, but it is a delicious embarrassment.

Catherine thinks the house the most comfortable in England, and cannot hide her admiration of the prettily-shaped unfurnished drawing-room. “‘Oh! why do you not fit up this room, Mr. Tilney? What a pity not to have it fitted up. It is the prettiest room I ever saw; it is the prettiest room in the world!’

“‘I trust,’ said the General with a most satisfied smile, ‘that it will very speedily be furnished: it waits only for a lady’s taste.’

“‘Well, if it was my house, I should never sit anywhere else. Oh! what a sweet little cottage there is among the trees; apple-trees too! It is the prettiest cottage——’

“‘You like it? you approve of it as an object? It is enough. Henry, remember that Robinson is spoken to about it. The cottage remains.’

“Such a compliment recalled all Catherine’s consciousness and silenced her directly; and though pointedly applied to by the General for her choice of the prevailing colour of the paper and hangings, nothing like an opinion on the subject could be drawn from her. The influence of fresh objects and fresh air, however, was of great use in dissipating those embarrassing associations; and having reached the ornamental part of the premises, consisting of a walk round two sides of a meadow, on which Henry’s genius had begun to act about half a year ago, she was sufficiently recovered to think it prettier than any pleasure-ground she had ever been in before, though there was not a shrub in it higher than the green branch in the corner.

“A saunter into other meadows, and through part of the village, with a visit to the stables to examine some improvements, and a charming game of play with a litter of puppies just able to roll about, brought them to four o’clock, when Catherine scarcely thought it could be three. At four they were to dine, and at six to set off on their return. Never had any day passed so quickly.”

Yet reflection might have suggested one drawback to the delights of Woodston. Catherine had already marvelled and even exclaimed when Henry Tilney proposed to go away from Northanger several days before the date of their visit, in order to make preparations for their entertainment at Woodston. How could he think so much trouble necessary for their dinner, when the General had particularly desired him not to put himself about, and had made a point of his providing nothing extraordinary? But Henry had only smiled, and started betimes for Woodston.

Now on the occasion of the visit, Catherine “could not but observe that the abundance of the dinner did not seem to create the smallest astonishment in the General; nay, that he was even looking at the side-table for cold meat which was not there. His son and daughter’s observations were of a different kind. They had seldom seen him eat so heartily at any table but his own; and never before known him so little disconcerted by the melted butter being oiled.”

Catherine might at least have foreseen that, however eager the General was to welcome her as a daughter-in-law, he would prove an alarming parent to visit Woodston in days to come.

The morning after the happy day at Woodston, Catherine is surprised by a letter from Isabella Thorpe, which is so cleverly characteristic of that transparently designing and entertaining girl, I must give it all.

But the upright, unsuspicious young girl who thinks no evil, is not a fool, and in this respect she has a great advantage over such female characters as the Amelia of another great humourist, Thackeray. It is refreshing to learn that the inconsistencies, contradictions, and falsehoods of that letter strike Catherine from the very first. “She was ashamed of Isabella, and ashamed of having ever loved her. The professions of attachment were now as disgusting, as her excuses were empty, and her demands impudent.” “Write to James on her behalf! No, James should never hear Isabella’s name mentioned by her again.”

On Henry’s arrival from Woodston, Catherine makes known to him and Eleanor their brother’s safety, congratulating them with sincerity on it, and reading aloud the most material passages of her letter with strong indignation. When she has finished it, “So much for Isabella,” she cries, “and for all our intimacy. 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.”

“It will soon be as if you never had,” said Henry.

V.

The unpleasant sequel of Catherine Morland’s visit to Northanger Abbey is, we trust, barely possible in our day. The unworthy resentment, unworthily vented on an innocent victim by an arrogant, worldly-minded man, foiled in his selfish schemes, and enraged at finding himself taken in by so shallow a conspirator as John Thorpe, may be common enough at all times; but, at least, we live in a generation when men do not wear their tempers, any more than their vices, on their sleeves.

General Tilney has gone up to London, while Catherine’s visit to Northanger Abbey is prolonged at Eleanor Tilney’s request, with her father’s full approval. The girls have been left alone one evening, by Henry’s having found himself under the necessity of taking his curate’s place at Woodston. They are about to separate at eleven o’clock at night, when they hear a carriage drive up to the door, followed by the loud noise of the door-bell.

Eleanor predicts the unexpected arrival of her elder brother Frederick, and Catherine retreats to her room in some discomposure. But her trepidation at the notion of encountering her brother’s rival is nothing compared to her affright when, half an hour later, she discovers her friend Eleanor hovering about Catherine’s door, in a state of extreme agitation. Eleanor is the reluctant, grieved, and affronted messenger from her father to the guest whom he has hitherto delighted to honour. General Tilney has recollected an engagement which will take the whole family away from Northanger Abbey on Monday (this day is Saturday). The Tilneys are all going to Lord Longtown’s, near Hereford, for a fortnight. General Tilney has sent Eleanor, her heart swelling with sorrow and shame, to tell Catherine of a departure which, in the most unceremonious and unkind manner, compels her own.

Great and unpleasant as her surprise is, I am glad to say Catherine displays dawning dignity. She suppresses her feelings, speaks of a second engagement’s yielding to a first, and declines to take offence. She will finish her visit to Northanger Abbey at some other time, and cannot Eleanor come to her? Happy thought! cannot Eleanor come to Fullerton on her way back from Herefordshire?

“It will not be in my power, Catherine,” Eleanor answers briefly, in awkwardness and dejection.

Still Catherine continues resolutely cheerful. Let Eleanor come when she can. Then Catherine betrays she is calculating on bidding another friend good-bye. She will be able to go when the rest set out on Monday, she says. It does not matter, though word has not been forwarded to her father and mother. The General, she hopes, will send a servant with her half-way. She will soon be at Salisbury, and then she will only be nine miles from home.

My readers must remember that the inconveniences of young ladies travelling alone were multiplied indefinitely, and even magnified to dangers, when girls had to go in post-chaises, or by coaches, over rough roads, and in a very deliberate fashion—largely affected by the merits or defects of the inns on the route, the horses, and, above all, the weather—even granting that highwaymen had waxed scarce by the close of last century.

Poor Eleanor has the still harder task of dashing these modest expectations to the ground. The General has sent his daughter with the unconscionably insulting and unfeeling message that Catherine must leave early next morning. Even the choice of the hour is not left to her: the carriage is ordered at seven o’clock, and no servant will be offered to her.

I am fain to think such rude insolence, such an ungentlemanlike and unfatherly breach of hospitality to, and consideration for, a young girl—his invited guest, his daughter’s friend—could seldom have been perpetrated by the most irresponsible member of the old “quality”—the most selfish tyrant who ever figured in an antiquated army list. I believe General Tilney’s action on this occasion to be one of the few-and-far-between exaggerations to be found in Jane Austen’s earlier novels.

Catherine sits down breathless and speechless under the outrage. She can scarcely listen to Eleanor’s earnest, humble apologies, her faltering explanations that her father’s temper is not happy, and something has occurred recently to ruffle it in an uncommon degree.

When Catherine speaks, after she has put the one wistful, fruitless question, “Have I offended the General?” it is to say, quietly and firmly, that she is very sorry if she has offended Eleanor’s father; it is the last thing she would willingly have done. She bids Eleanor not be unhappy; a few days longer would not have made any great difference. The journey of seventy miles by post will be nothing. She can be ready at seven. She begs to be called in time.

In short, Catherine behaves at this crisis with a simple self-respect and an absence of either rancour or frenzy which brings her out in striking and agreeable contrast to the rampaging termagants of later fiction.

But when she is left alone, poor young Catherine cannot so much as attempt to persuade herself that she has not been very badly treated, and that she is not smarting under the sense of the unprovoked ill-usage in addition to her own little private stock of wretchedness. For not only has the polite, high-bred General Tilney, who had seemed so particularly fond of her, behaved to her with gross incivility, there is the crowning misery of the knowledge that the false and barbarous General is Henry Tilney’s father, and that she will not even see Henry to hear what he thinks of the cruel injustice, and to bid him farewell. Besides, what will her father and mother, the Allens, and the world think of the disgraceful indignity which has been put upon her, the bitter mortification to which she has been subjected?

But there is no help for it, and though sleep is impossible, Catherine can be as punctual as her friend Eleanor, who is up to do all that the most sincere affection and hearty regret can contrive, to atone for her father’s conduct. Catherine may be unable to swallow a mouthful when she thinks of the last breakfast in the same room: “Happy, happy breakfast! for Henry had been there; Henry had sat by her and helped her.” But she is able to decline decidedly, though tenderly, to write to Eleanor when Catherine finds that correspondence has been prohibited between the girls, and the one letter, announcing Catherine’s safe arrival, for which Eleanor entreats, must be directed under cover to her maid Alice. It is only Eleanor’s distress at her refusal which draws from Catherine a promise to commit this single infringement of the prohibition.

At the last moment, had it not been for Eleanor Tilney’s anxious forethought in ascertaining whether Catherine’s purse would meet the requirements of the journey, the inexperienced young girl would have found herself “turned from the house without even the means of getting home.” The necessary loan is quickly offered and accepted, but this realisation of the situation so overwhelms the two girls that they exchange their parting embrace in silence. Catherine forces her quivering lips to leave “My kind remembrance for my absent friend,” but the reference is too much for her, and she has to hide her face as she jumps into the chaise and is driven from the door.

The only solution which Catherine can think of, for the unaccountable change in the General’s behaviour to her, is too dreadful for her to dwell upon, though it has a serio-comic effect, as Jane Austen no doubt intended, on the reader. Can General Tilney have found out, by any means short of a tremendous breach of faith on the part of Henry or Eleanor Tilney, that Catherine has been so foolish and wicked as to suspect him of being a murderer, and is he now revenging himself upon her, almost justifiably, by refusing to let her remain in the same house with him, or to hold any farther communication with his family?

The real explanation may as well be given here. Catherine’s one great offence in the General’s eyes is that she is less rich and prosperous in every way than he had believed her to be. The fine gentleman is capable of the most mercenary efforts for the aggrandisement of his family. His greed has caused him to fall an easy prey to so vulgar a schemer as John Thorpe. In the days when Isabella Thorpe and her brother were ready to hail the probability of a double family alliance with James Morland and his sister. General Tilney had chanced to notice his son’s attentions to Catherine in the theatre at Bath. Being on speaking terms with John Thorpe, the General had not disdained to fish for some information with regard to the young lady’s circumstances.

John Thorpe, in his vanity and bluster, had bragged his very best. He was not content with representing the Morlands’ prospects invested with the brilliance which his credulous imagination and that of Isabella, stimulated by self-interest, had already bestowed on them, but added twice as much to everything, for the grandeur of the moment. “By doubling what he chose to think the amount of Mr. Morland’s preferment, trebling his private fortune, bestowing a rich aunt, and sinking half the children, he was able to represent the whole family to the General in a most respectable light. For Catherine, however, the peculiar object of the General’s curiosity and his own speculations, he had yet something more in reserve; and the ten or fifteen thousand which her father could give her would be a pretty addition to Mr. Allen’s estate. Her intimacy there had made him seriously determine on her being handsomely legacied hereafter, and to speak of her as the almost acknowledged future heiress of Fullerton naturally followed.”

General Tilney had not doubted the authority of his informant, and had shaped his course accordingly. He had been enlightened as to his mistake by the very person who had deceived him. The General had encountered Thorpe in town, when under the influence of exactly opposite feelings—irritated by Catherine’s refusal, and yet more by the failure of an endeavour to reconcile James Morland to Isabella—John Thorpe turned, and not only coolly contradicted every word he had ever said to the advantage of the Morlands, he went as far in lying to their disadvantage. Mr. Morland was not a man either of substance or credit. He had not been able to give his son even a decent maintenance in the contemplation of his marriage. The whole Morland family were necessitous—numerous, too, almost beyond example; by no means respected in their own neighbourhood; aiming at a style of life to which they were not entitled; seeking to better themselves by wealthy connections; a forward, scheming race. (I hope my readers admire the accuracy with which, in slandering the Morlands, John Thorpe describes himself and his sister, in fulfilment of the adage, that as we do ourselves we judge our neighbours.)

The horrified General pronounced the name of Allen.

Here, too, Thorpe had found out his error. The Allens had lived near the Morlands too long; besides, John Thorpe knew the young man on whom the Fullerton estate must devolve.

General Tilney had heard enough. He set off in a fury for the Abbey, to undo his own performance.

In the meantime Catherine is travelling home to Fullerton. “To return in such a manner was almost to destroy the pleasure of a meeting with those whom she loved best, even after an absence such as hers—an eleven weeks’ absence.”

“She rather dreaded than sought for the first view of that well-known spire, which would announce her within twenty miles of home. Salisbury she had known to be her point on leaving Northanger; but after the first stage, she had been indebted to the post-masters for the names of the places which were then to conduct her to it, so great had been her ignorance of her route. She met with nothing, however, to distress or frighten her. Her gentle, civil manners, and liberal pay, procured her all the attention that a traveller like herself could require; and stopping only to change horses, she travelled on for about eleven hours,[41] without accident or alarm; and between six and seven o’clock in the evening found herself entering Fullerton.”

VI.

Jane Austen has here an excellent opportunity for one of her ironical paragraphs. “A heroine returning at the close of her career to her native village in all the triumph of recovered reputation, and all the dignity of a countess, with a long train of noble relations in their several phaetons, and three waiting-maids in a travelling chaise-and-four behind her, is an event on which the pen of the contriver may well delight to dwell; it gives credit to every conclusion, and the author must share in the glory she so liberally bestows. 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 sundry groups, and speedy shall be her descent from it.”

But the very next sentences are full of the warm human kindness of the humourist in opposition to the cold cynicism of the mere satirist. “But whatever might be the distress of Catherine’s mind as she thus advanced towards the parsonage, and whatever the humiliation of her biographer in relating it, she was preparing enjoyment of no every-day nature for those to whom she went; first, in the appearance of her carriage, and secondly, in herself. The chaise of a traveller being a rare sight in Fullerton, the whole family were immediately at the window; and to have it stop at the sweep-gate was a pleasure to brighten every eye, and occupy every fancy—a pleasure quite unlooked-for by all but the two youngest children, a boy and a girl of six and four years old, who expected a brother and a sister in every carriage. Happy the glance that first distinguished Catherine! Happy the voice that proclaimed the discovery! But whether such happiness were the lawful property of George or Harriet could never be exactly understood.

“Her father, mother, Sarah, George and Harriet, all assembled at the door to welcome her with affectionate eagerness, was a sight to awaken the best feelings of Catherine’s heart; and in the embrace of each, as she stepped from the carriage, she found herself soothed beyond anything that she had believed possible. So surrounded, so caressed, she was even happy. In the joyfulness of family love everything for a short time was subdued; and the pleasure of seeing her leaving them at first little leisure for calm curiosity, they were all seated round the tea-table, which Mrs. Morland had hurried for the comfort of the poor traveller, whose pale and jaded looks soon caught her notice, before any inquiry so direct as to demand a positive answer was addressed to her.”

Even the soreness of the explanation becomes bearable because of the true fellow-feeling with which it is heard. Besides, though the Morlands cannot but be hurt and angry on account of the insult to their daughter, they are not naturally irritable people, and do not dwell on the injury.

“It was a strange business, and he must be a very strange man,” soon become words enough to express their indignation and wonder. In fact, her father and mother are much too philosophic for Catherine’s feelings when she has to listen to such sentences as “Catherine is safe home, and our comfort does not depend on General Tilney;” “This has been a strange acquaintance, soon made and soon ended. And you were sadly out of luck, too, in your Isabella. Ah! poor James! well, we must live and learn; and the next new friends you make I hope will be better worth keeping.”

Catherine’s great comfort at this time is in walking over to the Allens, to talk with Mrs. Allen over their never-to-be-forgotten visit to Bath. If Mrs. Allen is neither very wise nor very witty, nor possessed of any penetration to speak of—at least she mentions Henry Tilney’s name occasionally, and calls him a very agreeable young man.

For two days Mrs. Morland bears with her eldest daughter’s restlessness and sadness, but on the third morning the mother remonstrates: “My dear Catherine, I am afraid you are growing quite a fine lady. I do not know when poor Richard’s cravats would be done, if he had no friend but you,[42] your head runs too much upon Bath; but there is a time for everything—a time for balls and plays, and a time for work. You have had a long run of amusement, and now you must try to be useful.”

Catherine took up her work directly, saying, in a dejected voice, that her head did not run upon Bath—much.

“Then you are fretting about General Tilney, and that is very simple of you; for ten to one whether you ever see him again. You should never fret about trifles.” After a short silence, “I hope, my Catherine, you are not getting out of humour with home, because it is not so grand as Northanger; that would be turning your visit into an evil, indeed. Wherever you are, you should always be contented, but especially at home, because there you must spend the most of your time. I did not quite like, at breakfast, to hear you talk so much about the French bread at Northanger.”

“I am sure I do not care about the bread. It is all the same to me what I eat.”

“There is a very clever essay in one of the books upstairs upon much such a subject—about young girls who have been spoilt for home by great acquaintance—the ‘Mirror,’ I think—I will look it out for you some day or other, because I am sure it will do you good.”

Do sensible, kindly mothers still select such essays as those in Henry Mackenzie’s papers, and bring them for their daughters to read, with a sanguine expectation that the essays will answer their purpose? If not, is it because girls are less docile than they were wont to be, or because they are apt to imagine that they are considerably better informed than their elders, who have been in the world twice as long?

Mrs. Morland goes to fetch the work in question, but household matters keep the busy mistress of the family absent for some time. When she returns, she is unaware that a visitor has been shown in while she was away, and is surprised on re-entering the room to find a young man there she has never seen before.

With a look of much respect he immediately rises, and is introduced to Mrs. Morland by her conscious daughter as “Mr. Henry Tilney.”

With the embarrassment of real feeling he begins to apologise for his appearance there, “acknowledging that after what had passed he had little right to expect a welcome at Fullerton, and stating his impatience to be assured of Miss Morland’s having reached her home in safety as the cause of his intrusion.”

He does not address himself to an illiberal judge. Far from comprehending him and his sister in their father’s misconduct, Mrs. Morland has always been well disposed to both, and instantly pleased by his appearance, receives him with the simple professions of unaffected good-will, “thanking him for such an attention to her daughter, assuring him that the friends of her children were always welcome there, and entreating him to say not another word of the past.”

He is not disinclined to obey her request, trying as the situation is, while the agitated, happy Catherine sits perfectly silent in the conversation about the weather and the roads, which follows, “but her glowing cheek and brightened eye made her mother trust that this good-natured visit would, at least, set her heart at ease for a time; and gladly, therefore, did she lay aside the first volume of ‘The Mirror’ for a future hour.”

Then Henry Tilney, after a couple of minutes’ silence, and an inquiry whether the Allens are at Fullerton, with a rising colour, asks Catherine whether she will have the goodness to show him the way to her friends’ house?

“You may see the house from this window, sir,” is a piece of most malapropos information volunteered by Catherine’s younger sister Sarah, which produces only a bow of acknowledgment from the gentleman.

But good-natured, considerate Mrs. Morland comes to his aid. She sincerely pities his painful position, and believes he may have something to say, on his father’s account, which will be more easily said to Catherine alone. She sends away the couple together to the Allens.

Mrs. Morland is not entirely mistaken. Henry Tilney has some explanations to give on his father’s behalf, but “his first purpose was to explain himself, and before they reached Mr. Allen’s grounds he had done it so well that Catherine did not think it could ever be repeated too often.”

Jane Austen thus coolly defines the lovers’ relations:—Catherine “was assured of his affections, and that heart in return was solicited which, perhaps, they pretty equally knew was already entirely his own; for, though Henry was now sincerely attached to her—though he felt and delighted in all the excellences of her character, and truly loved her society—I must confess that his affection originated in nothing better than gratitude; or, in other words, that a persuasion of her partiality for him had been the only cause of his giving her a serious thought. It is a new circumstance in romance, I acknowledge, dreadfully derogatory to a heroine’s dignity; but if it be as new in common life, the credit of a wild imagination will at least be all my own.”

It is only after the pair have, in the formal phraseology of the day, “waited on the Allens,” when Henry Tilney talks at random, and Catherine Morland, wrapped in the contemplation of her unutterable happiness, scarcely opens her lips; that she hears, to her dismay, from her lover what has passed between him and his father only two days before. On Henry’s return from Woodston to Northanger, the General had told him angrily of Miss Morland’s departure, and forbidden him to think of her any more.

But if ever a young man is justified in acting in defiance of such a command, it is Henry Tilney. He has not only been encouraged in cherishing and displaying an attachment for Catherine, his father has in every possible way compromised his son, and bound him, in honour no less than in affection, to the young girl from whom General Tilney now seeks all at once, in the most unjust and despotic manner, to separate Henry.

It can be no matter to a young fellow who has never shared the General’s mercenary motives, and who is possessed of the sentiments of a man and a gentleman, that his father has been misled, and has committed himself to the course he has taken under an error.

The father and son, after their meeting and explanation, have parted in serious disagreement, and Henry Tilney has repaired, on his own responsibility, to Fullerton. But he has considerately saved Catherine from the obligation to a conscientious rejection of his addresses, by engaging her faith before telling her what had passed.

Luckily Mr. and Mrs. Morland, when they are appealed to, and have got over their surprise at being asked to give their consent to Henry Tilney’s suit to their daughter, are inclined to be moderate and indulgent in their views. Their parental pride and affection are gratified; they have not a single objection to urge against the young man personally. They recognise his good manners and good sense, and they are ready to give him credit for his good character. “Catherine would make a sad, heedless young housekeeper, to be sure,” was the mother’s foreboding remark; but quick comes the consolation of there being nothing like practice.

The one obstacle is, that while Henry Tilney’s father refuses his consent to the marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Morland cannot formally sanction an engagement. Their tempers are mild, but their principles are steady. They do not demand a great show of regard, but a decent acquiescence must be given. The General’s money may go. Henry Tilney’s present income is enough for independence and comfort, and he is entitled eventually, under his mother’s marriage settlement, to a very considerable fortune. But he must at least have his father’s countenance to his proposals.

The young people can neither be surprised nor can they complain, however much they may deplore the decision. They part for the time, hoping against hope for a speedy change in the General. “Henry returned to what was now his only home, to watch over his young plantations and extend his improvements for her sake, to whose share in them he looked anxiously forward; and Catherine remained at Fullerton to cry. Whether the torments of absence were softened by a clandestine correspondence let us not inquire. Mr. and Mrs. Morland never did; they had been too kind to exact any promise, and whenever Catherine received a letter, as at that time happened pretty often, they always looked another way.”

The probation ends much sooner than might have been expected, and the cause of the General’s yielding is the marriage of his daughter, in the course of the summer, to a man of fortune and consequence. This accession of reflected dignity brings on such a fit of good humour, that General Tilney does not recover from it till after the good, kind Eleanor has procured his forgiveness of her brother, and their father’s ungracious permission for Henry “to be a fool if he liked it.”