16 Northanger Abbey - Read By Stephanie Poppins

Northanger Abbey is the coming-of-age story of a young woman named Catherine Morland.

Northanger Abbey" by Jane Austen follows Catherine Morland, a young woman with a passion for Gothic novels, as she navigates the social world of Bath and later Northanger Abbey. Her romantic imagination, fueled by her love for these novels, leads her to misinterpret the people and events around her, particularly at the Tilney family's estate.

In this episode, Catherine has a delightful trip with the Tilneys.

Transcript

Welcome to Sleep Stories with Steph,

Your go-to podcast that offers you a calm and relaxing transition into a great night's sleep.

It is time to relax and fully let go.

There is nothing you need to be doing now,

And nowhere you need to go.

Close your eyes and feel yourself sink into the support beneath you and let all the worries of the day drift away.

This is your time and your space.

Take a deep breath in through your nose and let it out with a long sigh.

There is nothing you need to be doing now,

And nowhere you need to go.

Happy listening.

Chapter 14 continued.

The Tilneys were soon engaged in another topic on which Catherine had nothing to say.

They were viewing the country with the eyes of persons accustomed to drawing and decided on its capability of being formed into pictures with all the eagerness of real taste.

Here Catherine was quite lost.

She knew nothing of drawing,

Nothing of taste,

And she listened to them with an attention which brought her little profit,

For they talked in phrases which conveyed scarcely any idea to her.

The little which she could understand,

However,

Appeared to contradict the very few notions she had entertained on the matter before.

It seemed as if a good view were no longer to be taken from the top of a high hill,

And that a clear blue sky was no longer a proof of a fine day.

She was heartily ashamed of her ignorance,

Albeit a misplaced shame.

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 had the misfortune of knowing anything,

Should conceal it as well as she can.

The advantages of natural folly in a beautiful girl have been already set forth by the capital pen of a sister author,

And to her treatment of the subject I will only add injustice to men that though to the larger and more trifling part of the sex,

Imbecility in females is a great enhancement of their personal charms.

There is a portion of them too reasonable and too well-informed themselves to desire anything more in woman than ignorance.

But Catherine did not know her own advantages,

Did not know that a good-looking girl with an affectionate heart and an ignorant mind cannot fail of attracting a clever young man unless circumstances are particularly untoward.

In the present instance she confessed and lamented her want of knowledge,

Declared she would give anything in the world to be able to draw,

And a lecture on the picturesque immediately followed in which his instructions were so clear she soon began to see beauty in everything admired by him,

And her attention was so earnest that Mr Tilney became perfectly satisfied of her having a great deal of natural taste.

He talked of foregrounds,

Distances and second distances,

Side-screens and perspectives,

Lights and shades,

And Catherine was so hopeful a scholar that when they gained the top of beach and cliff she voluntarily rejected the whole city of Bath as unworthy to make part of a landscape.

Delighted with her progress and fearful of wearing her with too much wisdom at once,

Henry suffered the subject to decline,

And by an easy transition from a piece of rocky fragment and the withered oak which he had placed near its summit,

To oaks in general,

To forests,

The enclosure of them,

Wastelands,

Crown lands and government,

He shortly found himself arrived in politics,

And from politics it was an easy step to silence.

The general pause which succeeded his short disquisition on the state of the nation was put at an end by Catherine,

Who in a rather solemn tone of voice uttered these words,

I have heard that something very shocking indeed will soon come out in London.

Miss Tilney,

To whom this was chiefly addressed,

Was startled and hastily replied,

Indeed,

And of what nature?

That I do not know,

Nor who is the author,

I have only heard it to be more horrible than anything we have met with yet.

Good heaven!

Where could you hear of such a thing?

A particular friend of mine had an account of it in a letter from London yesterday.

It is to be uncommonly dreadful.

I shall expect murder and everything of the kind.

You speak with astonishing composure,

But I hope your friend's accounts have been exaggerated,

And if such a design is known beforehand,

Proper measures will undoubtedly be taken by government to prevent its coming to effect.

Government?

Said Henry,

Endeavouring not to smile.

Neither desires nor dares to interfere in such matters.

There must be murder,

And government cares not how much.

The lady stared.

He laughed and said,

Come,

Shall I make you understand each other,

Or leave you to puzzle out an explanation as you can?

No,

I will be noble.

I will prove myself a man no less by the generosity of my soul than the clearness of my head.

I have no patience with such of my sex as disdain to let themselves sometimes down to the comprehension of yours.

Perhaps the abilities of women are neither sound nor acute,

Neither vigorous nor keen.

Perhaps they may want observation,

Discernment,

Judgment,

Fire,

Genius and wit.

Miss Morland,

Do not mind what he says,

But have the goodness to satisfy me as to this dreadful riot.

Riot?

What riot?

My dear Eleanor,

The riot is only in your own brain.

The confusion there is scandalous.

Miss Morland has been talking of nothing more dreadful than a new publication which shall need to come out,

In three volumes,

276 pages in each,

With the frontispieces to the first few tombstones in a lantern.

Do you understand?

And you,

Miss Morland,

My stupid sister has mistaken all your clearest expressions.

You talked of expected horrors in London,

And instead of instantly conceiving,

As any rational creature would have done,

That such words could relate only to a circulating library,

She immediately pictured to herself a mob of three thousand men assembling in St George's Field.

The bank attacked,

The tower threatened,

The streets of London flowing with blood,

A detachment of the twelve light dragoons called up from Northampton to quell the insurgents,

And the gallant Captain Frederick Tilney,

In the moment of charging at the head of his troop,

Knocked off his horse by a brick bat from an upper window.

Forgive her stupidity,

The fears of the sister have added to the weakness of the woman,

But she is by no means a simpleton in general.

" Catherine looked grave.

"'And now,

Henry,

' said Miss Tilney,

"'that you have made us understand each other,

You may as well make Miss Morland understand yourself,

Unless you mean to have her think you intolerably rude to your sister,

And a great brute in your opinion of women in general.

Miss Morland is not used to your odd ways.

' "'I shall be most happy to make her better acquainted with them.

' "'No doubt,

But that is no explanation of the present.

' "'What am I to do?

' "'You know what you ought to do.

Clear your character handsomely before her.

Tell her you think very highly of the understanding of women.

' "'Miss Morland,

I think very highly of the understanding of all the women in the world,

Especially of those,

Whoever they may be,

With whom I happen to be in company.

' "'That is not enough.

Be more serious.

' "'Miss Morland,

No one can think more highly of the understanding of women than I do.

In my opinion,

Nature has given them so much that they never find it necessary to use more than half.

' "'We shall never get nothing more serious from him now,

Miss Morland.

He's not in a sober mood.

But I do assure you he must be entirely misunderstood if he can ever appear to say an unjust thing of any woman at all,

Or an unkind one of me.

' It was no effort to Catherine to believe Henry Tilney could never be wrong.

His manner might sometimes surprise,

But his meaning must always be just.

And what she did not understand,

She was almost as ready to admire as what she did.

The whole walk was delightful,

And though it ended too soon,

Its conclusion was delightful too.

Her friends attended her into the house,

And Miss Tilney,

Before they parted,

Addressing herself with respectful form as much to Mrs.

Allen as to Catherine,

Petitioned for the pleasure of her company to dinner on the day after the next.

No difficulty was made on Mrs.

Allen's side,

And the only difficulty on Catherine's was in concealing the excess of her pleasure.

The morning had passed away so charmingly as to banish all her friendship and natural affection,

For no thought of Isabella or James had crossed her during their walk.

When the Tilneys were gone she became amiable again,

But she was amiable for some time to little effect.

Mrs.

Allen had no intelligence to give that could relieve her anxiety.

She had heard nothing of any of them.

Towards the end of the morning,

However,

Catherine,

Having occasion for some indispensable yard of ribbon which must be bought without a moment's delay,

Walked out into the town,

And in Bond Street overtook the second Miss Thorpe as she was loitering towards Edgar's Buildings between two of the sweetest girls in the world who had been her dear friends all the morning.

From her she soon learned the party to Clifton had taken place.

They set off at eight this morning,

Said Miss Anne,

And I'm sure I do not envy them their drive.

I think you and I are very well off to be out of the scrape.

It must be the dullest thing in the world,

For there's not a soul at Clifton this time of year.

Belle went with your brother,

And John drove Maria.

Catherine spoke the pleasure she really felt on hearing this part of the arrangement.

Oh yes,

Rejoined the other,

Maria's gone.

She was quite wild to go.

She thought it would be something very fine.

I cannot say I admire her taste,

And for my part I was determined from the first not to go if they press me ever so much.

Catherine,

A little doubtful of this,

Could not help answering.

I wish she could have gone too.

It's a pity he could not all go.

Thank you,

But it's quite a matter of indifference to me.

Indeed,

I would not have gone on any account.

I was saying so to Emily and Sophia when you overtook us.

Catherine was still unconvinced,

But glad that Anne should have the friendship of an Emily and a Sophia to console her.

She bade her adieu without much uneasiness and returned home,

Pleased that the party had not been prevented by her refusing to join it,

And very heartily wishing it might be too pleasant to allow either James or Isabella to resent her resistance any longer.

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