Chapter 14
The next morning was fair,and Catherine almost expected another attack from the assembled party.With Mr Allen to support her,she felt no dread of the event:but she would gladly be spared a contest,where victory itself was painful;and was heartily rejoiced therefore at neither seeing nor hearing anything of them.The Tilneys called for her at the appointed time;and no new difficulty arising,no sudden recollection,no unexpected summons,no impertinent intrusion to disconcert their measures,my heroine was most unnaturally able to fulfil her engagement,though it was made with the hero himself.They determined on walking round Beechen Cliff,that noble hill,whose beautiful verdure and hanging coppice 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.’
‘Thank you,Eleanor; a most honourable testimony.You see,Miss Morland,the injustice of your suspicions.Here was I,in my eagerness to get on,refusing to wait only five minutes for my sister;breaking the promise I had made of reading it aloud,and keeping her in suspense at a most interesting part,by running away with the volume,which,you are to observe,was her own,particularly her own.I am proud when I reflect on it,and I think it must establish me in your good opinion.’
‘I am very glad to hear it indeed,and now I shall never be ashamed of liking Udolpho myself.But I really thought before,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?”and “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!’
‘Not very good I am afraid.But now really,do not you think Udolpho the nicest book in the world?’
‘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,he is treating you exactly as he does his sister.He is for ever finding fault with me,for some incorrectness of language,and now he is taking the same liberty with you.The word “nicest,”as you used it,did not suit him;and you had better change it as soon as you can,or we shall be overpowered with Johnson and Blair all the rest of the way.’
‘I am sure,’cried Catherine,‘I did not mean to say anything 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.Oh!it is a very nice word indeed! it does for everything.Originally perhaps it was applied only to express neatness,propriety,delicacy,or refinement; people were nice in their dress,in their sentiments,or their choice.But now 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.You are more nice than wise.Come,Miss Morland,let us leave him to meditate over our faults in the utmost propriety of diction,while we praise Udolpho in whatever terms we like best.It is a most interesting work.You are fond of that kind of reading?’
‘To say the truth,I do not much like any other.’
‘Indeed!’
‘That is,I can read poetry and plays,and things of that sort,and do not dislike travels.But history,real solemn history,I cannot be interested in.Can you?’
‘Yes,I am fond of history.’
‘I wish I were too.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:and yet I often think it odd that it should be so dull,for a great deal of it must be invention.The speeches that are put into the heroes'mouths,their thoughts and designs the chief of all this must be invention,and invention is what delights me in other books.’