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Northanger Abbey
NORTHANGER ABBEY
by Jane Austen (1803)
ADVERTISEMENT BY THE AUTHORESS, TO NORTHANGER ABBEY
THIS little work was finished in the year 1803, and intended for
immediate publication. It was disposed of to a bookseller, it was
even advertised, and why the business proceeded no farther, the author
has never been able to learn. That any bookseller should think it
worth-while to purchase what he did not think it worth-while to
publish seems extraordinary. But with this, neither the author nor
the public have any other concern than as some observation is
necessary upon those parts of the work which thirteen years have made
comparatively obsolete. The public are entreated to bear in mind that
thirteen years have passed since it was finished, many more since it
was begun, and that during that period, places, manners, books, and
opinions have undergone considerable changes.
CHAPTER 1
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. Her father was a clergyman, without
being neglected, or poor, and a very respectable man, though his name
was Richard -- and he had never been handsome. He had a considerable
independence besides two good livings -- and he was not in the least
addicted to locking up his daughters. Her mother was a woman of
useful plain sense, with a good temper, and, what is more remarkable,
with a good constitution. She had three sons before Catherine was
born; and instead of dying in bringing the latter into the world, as
anybody might expect, she still lived on -- lived to have six children
more -- to see them growing up around her, and to enjoy excellent
health herself. A family of ten children will be always called a fine
family, where there are heads and arms and legs enough for the number;
but the Morlands had little other right to the word, for they were in
general very plain, and Catherine, for many years of her life, as
plain as any. She had a thin awkward figure, a sallow skin without
colour, dark lank hair, and strong features -- so much for her person;
and not less unpropitious for heroism seemed her mind. She was fond
of all boy's plays, and greatly preferred cricket not merely to dolls,
but to the more heroic enjoyments of infancy, nursing a dormouse,
feeding a canary-bird, or watering a rose-bush. Indeed she had no
taste for a garden; and if she gathered flowers at all, it was chiefly
for the pleasure of mischief -- at least so it was conjectured from
her always preferring those which she was forbidden to take. Such
were her propensities -- her abilities were quite as extraordinary.
She never could learn or understand anything before she was taught;
and sometimes not even then, for she was often inattentive, and
occasionally stupid. Her mother was three months in teaching her only
to repeat the "Beggar's Petition"; and after all, her next sister,
Sally, could say it better than she did. Not that Catherine was
always stupid -- by no means; she learnt the fable of "The Hare and
Many Friends" as quickly as any girl in England. Her mother wished
her to learn music; and Catherine was sure she should like it, for she
was very fond of tinkling the keys of the old forlorn spinner; so, at
eight years old she began. She learnt a year, and could not bear it;
and Mrs. Morland, who did not insist on her daughters being
accomplished in spite of incapacity or distaste, allowed her to leave
off. The day which dismissed the music-master was one of the happiest
of Catherine's life. Her taste for drawing was not superior; though
whenever she could obtain the outside of a letter from her mother or
seize upon any other odd piece of paper, she did what she could in
that way, by drawing houses and trees, hens and chickens, all very
much like one another. Writing and accounts she was taught by her
father; French by her mother: her proficiency in either was not
remarkable, and she shirked her lessons in both whenever she could.
What a strange, unaccountable character! -- for with all these
symptoms of profligacy at ten years old, she had neither a bad heart
nor a bad temper, was seldom stubborn, scarcely ever quarrelsome, and
very kind to the little ones, with few interruptions of tyranny; she
was moreover noisy and wild, hated confinement and cleanliness, and
loved nothing so well in the world as rolling down the green slope at
the back of the house.
Such was Catherine Morland at ten. At fifteen, appearances were
mending; she began to curl her hair and long for balls; her complexion
improved, her features were softened by plumpness and colour, her eyes
gained more animation, and her figure more consequence. Her love of
dirt gave way to an inclination for finery, and she grew clean as she
grew smart; 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; and it was not very wonderful
that Catherine, who had by nature nothing heroic about her, should
prefer cricket, baseball, riding on horseback, and running about the
country at the age of fourteen, to books -- or at least books of
information -- for, provided that nothing like useful knowledge could
be gained from them, provided they were all story and no reflection,
she had never any objection to books at all. But from fifteen to
seventeen she was in training for a heroine; she read all such works
as heroines must read to supply their memories with those quotations
which are so serviceable and so soothing in the vicissitudes of their
eventful lives.
From Pope, she learnt to censure those who "bear about the mockery of
woe."
From Gray, that "Many a flower is born to blush unseen, "And waste its
fragrance on the desert air."
From Thompson, that -- "It is a delightful task "To teach the young
idea how to shoot."
And from Shakespeare she gained a great store of information --
amongst the rest, that -- "Trifles light as air, "Are, to the jealous,
confirmation strong, "As proofs of Holy Writ."
That "The poor beetle, which we tread upon, "In corporal sufferance
feels a pang as great "As when a giant dies."
And that a young woman in love always looks -- "like Patience on a
monument "Smiling at Grief."
So far her improvement was sufficient -- and in many other points she
came on exceedingly well; for though she could not write sonnets, she
brought herself to read them; and though there seemed no chance of her
throwing a whole party into raptures by a prelude on the pianoforte,
of her own composition, she could listen to other people's performance
with very little fatigue. Her greatest deficiency was in the pencil
-- she had no notion of drawing -- not enough even to attempt a sketch
of her lover's profile, that she might be detected in the design.
There she fell miserably short of the true heroic height. At present
she did not know her own poverty, for she had no lover to portray.
She had reached the age of seventeen, without having seen one amiable
youth who could call forth her sensibility, without having inspired
one real passion, and without having excited even any admiration but
what was very moderate and very transient. This was strange indeed!
But strange things may be generally accounted for if their cause be
fairly searched out. 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.
Mr. Allen, who owned the chief of the property about Fullerton, the
village in Wiltshire where the Morlands lived, was ordered to Bath for
the benefit of a gouty constitution -- and his lady, a good-humoured
woman, fond of Miss Morland, and probably aware that if adventures
will not befall a young lady in her own village, she must seek them
abroad, invited her to go with them. Mr. and Mrs. Morland were all
compliance, and Catherine all happiness.