Category Archives: Henry Tilney

January 20, 2008 · 8:00 am

To begin perfect happiness

Forgive me for the spoiler, but I’m assuming you all know how the book (or movie) ends! Enjoy tonight.

“Henry and Catherine were married, the bells rang, and every body smiled; and, as this took place within a twelvemonth from the first day of their meeting, it will not appear, after all the dreadful delays occasioned by the General’s cruelty, that they were essentially hurt by it. To begin perfect happiness at the respective ages of twenty-six and eighteen, is to do
pretty well.”

Northanger Abbey, volume 2, chapter 16

Again, thanks to Solitary-Elegance.com for the image.

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Filed under Catherine Morland, Happiness, Henry Tilney, Marriage, Northanger Abbey

November 7, 2007 · 3:45 pm

Conceal it well, girls

“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, 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.”

This is the narrator’s voice, in the chapter where Henry, Eleanor and Catherine hike to the top of Beechen Cliff, and Catherine feels completely ignorant about Henry’s ideas of what makes a beautiful landscape
Northanger Abbey, volume 1, chapter 14

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Filed under a Woman's mind, Catherine Morland, Henry Tilney, Northanger Abbey, Pride

November 5, 2007 · 11:24 am

A necessity

“How are the civilities and compliments of every day to be related as they ought to be, unless noted down every evening in a journal? How are your various dresses to be remembered, and the particular state of your complexion, and curl of your hair to be described in all their diversities, without having constant recourse to a journal?”

Henry teasing Catherine the first time they meet in the Lower Rooms in Bath
Northanger Abbey, volume 1, chapter 3

I’m afraid that I am guilty as charged.

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Filed under Catherine Morland, Henry Tilney, Northanger Abbey, Sarcasm, Writing

November 1, 2007 · 1:09 pm

Becoming irresistible

“Catherine, meanwhile, undisturbed by presentiments of such an evil . . . enjoyed her usual happiness with Henry Tilney, listening with sparkling eyes to every thing he said; and, in finding him irresistible, becoming so herself.”

Dancing at the Assembly Rooms in Bath
Northanger Abbey, volume 2, chapter 1

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Filed under Catherine Morland, Henry Tilney, Love, Northanger Abbey

April 20, 2007 · 1:01 pm

The power of refusal

“Man has the advantage of choice, woman only the power of refusal.”

Henry Tilney, comparing dancing and marriage
Northanger Abbey, volume 1, chapter 10

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Filed under Balls, Henry Tilney, Marriage, Northanger Abbey

April 16, 2007 · 2:15 pm

Dreaming of Tilney

Ack! It is Monday, after a rainy, roof-leaking, tax-nightmare of a weekend, and I am running late. More from Northanger Abbey today. Reading it again, I’m reminded of Jane’s genius. It’s deceptively simple, but the characters are so perfectly drawn, and like Mags at AustenBlog (who runs Tilneys and Trap Doors) I am being won over by Henry Tilney’s gentle sarcasm.

” . . . if it be true, as a celebrated writer has maintained, that no young lady can be justified in falling in love before the gentleman’s love is declared, it must be very improper that a young lady should dream of a gentleman before the gentleman is known to have dreamt of her.”

Of the evening after Catherine first meets and dances with Henry, at the Lower Rooms in Bath
Northanger Abbey, volume 1, chapter 3

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Filed under Catherine Morland, Henry Tilney, Love, Northanger Abbey