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1"It is amazingly; it may well suggest amazement if they do--for they read nearly as many as women. I myself have read
2hundreds and hundreds. Do not imagine that you can cope with me in a knowledge of Julias and Louisas. If we proceed to
3particulars, and engage in the never-ceasing inquiry of 'Have you read this?' and 'Have you read that?' I shall soon
4leave you as far behind me as--what shall I say?--I want an appropriate simile.--as far as your friend Emily herself
5left poor Valancourt when she went with her aunt into Italy. Consider how many years I have had the start of you. I had
6entered on my studies at Oxford, while you were a good little girl working your sampler at home!" "Not very good, I am
7afraid. But now really, do not you think Udolpho the nicest book in the world?" "The nicest--by which I suppose you mean
8the neatest. That must depend upon the binding." "Henry," said Miss Tilney, "you are very impertinent. Miss Morland, he
9is treating you exactly as he does his sister. He is forever finding fault with me, for some incorrectness of language,
10and now he is taking the same liberty with you. The word 'nicest,' as you used it, did not suit him; and you had better
11change it as soon as you can, or we shall be overpowered with Johnson and Blair all the rest of the way." "I am sure,"
12cried Catherine, "I did not mean to say anything wrong; but it is a nice book, and why should not I call it so?" "Very
13true," said Henry, "and this is a very nice day, and we are taking a very nice walk, and you are two very nice young
14ladies. Oh! it is a very nice word indeed! it does for everything. Originally perhaps it was applied only to express
15neatness, propriety, delicacy, or refinement--people were nice in their dress, in their sentiments, or their choice. But
16now every commendation on every subject is comprised in that one word." "While, in fact," cried his sister, "it ought
17only to be applied to you, without any commendation at all. You are more nice than wise. Come, Miss Morland, let us
18leave him to meditate over our faults in the utmost propriety of diction, while we praise Udolpho in whatever terms we
19like best. It is a most interesting work. You are fond of that kind of reading?" "To say the truth, I do not much like
20any other." "Indeed!" "That is, I can read poetry and plays, and things of that sort, and do not dislike travels. But
21history, real solemn history, I cannot be interested in. Can you?" "Yes, I am fond of history." "I wish I were too. I
22read it a little as a duty, but it tells me nothing that does not either vex or weary me. The quarrels of popes and
23kings, with wars or pestilences, in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all--it is very
24tiresome: and yet I often think it odd that it should be so dull, for a great deal of it must be invention. The speeches
25that are put into the heroes' mouths, their thoughts and designs--the chief of all this must be invention, and invention
26is what delights me in other books." "Historians, you think," said Miss Tilney, "are not happy in their flights of
27fancy. They display imagination without raising interest. I am fond of history--and am very well contented to take the
28false with the true. In the principal facts they have sources of intelligence in former histories and records, which may
29be as much depended on, I conclude, as anything that does not actually pass under one's own observation; and as for the
30little embellishments you speak of, they are embellishments, and I like them as such. If a speech be well drawn up, I
31read it with pleasure, by whomsoever it may be made--and probably with much greater, if the production of Mr. Hume or
32Mr. Robertson, than if the genuine words of Caractacus, Agricola, or Alfred the Great." "You are fond of history! and so
33are Mr. Allen and my father; and I have two brothers who do not dislike it. So many instances within my small circle of
34friends is remarkable! at this rate, I shall not pity the writers of history any longer. If people like to read their
35books, it is all very well, but to be at so much trouble in filling great volumes, which, as I used to think, nobody
36would willingly ever look into, to be labouring only for the torment of little boys and girls, always struck me as a
37hard fate; and though I know it is all very right and necessary, I have often wondered at the person's courage that
38could sit down on purpose to do it." "That little boys and girls should be tormented," said Henry, "is what no one at
39all acquainted with human nature in a civilized state can deny; but in behalf of our most distinguished historians, I
40must observe that they might well be offended at being supposed to have no higher aim, and that by their method and
41style, they are perfectly well qualified to torment readers of the most advanced reason and mature time of life. I use
42the verb 'to torment,' as I observed to be your own method, instead of 'to instruct,' supposing them to be now admitted
43as synonymous." "You think me foolish to call instruction a torment, but if you had been as much used as myself to hear
44poor little children first learning their letters and then learning to spell, if you had ever seen how stupid they can
45be for a whole morning together, and how tired my poor mother is at the end of it, as I am in the habit of seeing almost
46every day of my life at home, you would allow that to torment and to instruct might sometimes be used as synonymous
47words." "Very probably. But historians are not accountable for the difficulty of learning to read; and even you
48yourself, who do not altogether seem particularly friendly to very severe, very intense application, may perhaps be
49brought to acknowledge that it is very well worth-while to be tormented for two or three years of one's life, for the
50sake of being able to read all the rest of it. Consider--if reading had not been taught, Mrs. Radcliffe would have
51written in vain--or perhaps might not have written at all." Catherine assented--and a very warm panegyric from her on
52that lady's merits closed the subject. The Tilneys were soon engaged in another on which she had nothing to say. They
53were viewing the country with the eyes of persons accustomed to drawing, and decided on its capability of being formed
54into pictures, with all the eagerness of real taste. Here Catherine was quite lost. She knew nothing of drawing--nothing
55of taste: and she listened to them with an attention which brought her little profit, for they talked in phrases which
56conveyed scarcely any idea to her. The little which she could understand, however, appeared to contradict the very few
57notions she had entertained on the matter before. It seemed as if a good view were no longer to be taken from the top of
58an high hill, and that a clear blue sky was no longer a proof of a fine day. She was heartily ashamed of her ignorance.
59A misplaced shame. Where people wish to attach, they should always be ignorant. To come with a well-informed mind is to
60come with an inability of administering to the vanity of others, which a sensible person would always wish to avoid. A
61woman especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.
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