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
A Walk with Jane Austen: A Journey into Adventure, Love, and Faith
I love that whole conversation they have in that chapter - Austen is satirizing not only the social constraints of the time, but also the constraints of the novel form. And the witty dialogue is just so much fun!