Austen, Jane (1775-1817)

Northanger Abbey

London

John Murray

1818

"As they walked home again, Mrs. Morland endeavoured to impress on her daughter's mind the happiness of having such steady well-wishers as Mr. 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."

As they walked home again, Mrs. Morland endeavoured to impress on her daughter's mind the happiness of having such steady well-wishers as Mr. 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. Morland was successfully confirming her own opinions by the justness of her own representations, Catherine was silently reflecting that now Henry must have arrived at Northanger; now he must have heard of her departure; and now , perhaps, they were all setting off for Hereford.
(II, pp. 295-7)

Impressions

Reading

See Northanger Abbey: and Persuasion. But the Author of "Pride and Prejudice," "Mansfield-Park," &c. With a Biographical Notice of the Author. 4 vols. (London: John Murray, Albemarle Street, 1818).

Reading Northanger Abbey, ed. Susan Fraiman (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2004).

09/02/2014