บทที่ บทที่ 5 · 第5章

Catherine was not so much engaged at the theatre that evening, in

returning the nods and smiles of Miss Thorpe, though they certainly

claimed much of her leisure, as to forget to look with an inquiring eye

for Mr. Tilney in every box which her eye could reach; but she looked

in vain. Mr. Tilney was no fonder of the play than the pump-room. She

hoped to be more fortunate the next day; and when her wishes for fine

weather were answered by seeing a beautiful morning, she hardly felt a

doubt of it; for a fine Sunday in Bath empties every house of its

inhabitants, and all the world appears on such an occasion to walk

about and tell their acquaintance what a charming day it is.

As soon as divine service was over, the Thorpes and Allens eagerly

joined each other; and after staying long enough in the pump-room to

discover that the crowd was insupportable, and that there was not a

genteel face to be seen, which everybody discovers every Sunday

throughout the season, they hastened away to the Crescent, to breathe

the fresh air of better company. Here Catherine and Isabella, arm in

arm, again tasted the sweets of friendship in an unreserved

conversation; they talked much, and with much enjoyment; but again was

Catherine disappointed in her hope of reseeing her partner. He was

nowhere to be met with; every search for him was equally unsuccessful,

in morning lounges or evening assemblies; neither at the Upper nor

Lower Rooms, at dressed or undressed balls, was he perceivable; nor

among the walkers, the horsemen, or the curricle-drivers of the

morning. His name was not in the pump-room book, and curiosity could do

no more. He must be gone from Bath. Yet he had not mentioned that his

stay would be so short! this sort of mysteriousness, which is always so

becoming in a hero, threw a fresh grace in Catherine’s imagination

around his person and manners, and increased her anxiety to know more

of him. From the Thorpes she could learn nothing, for they had been

only two days in Bath before they met with Mrs. Allen. It was a

subject, however, in which she often indulged with her fair friend,

from whom she received every possible encouragement to continue to

think of him; and his impression on her fancy was not suffered

therefore to weaken. Isabella was very sure that he must be a charming

young man, and was equally sure that he must have been delighted with

her dear Catherine, and would therefore shortly return. She liked him

the better for being a clergyman, “for she must confess herself very

partial to the profession”; and something like a sigh escaped her as

she said it. Perhaps Catherine was wrong in not demanding the cause of

that gentle emotion—but she was not experienced enough in the finesse

of love, or the duties of friendship, to know when delicate raillery

was properly called for, or when a confidence should be forced.

Mrs. Allen was now quite happy—quite satisfied with Bath. She had found

some acquaintance, had been so lucky too as to find in them the family

of a most worthy old friend; and, as the completion of good fortune,

had found these friends by no means so expensively dressed as herself.

Her daily expressions were no longer, “I wish we had some acquaintance

in Bath!” They were changed into, “How glad I am we have met with Mrs.

Thorpe!” and she was as eager in promoting the intercourse of the two

families, as her young charge and Isabella themselves could be; never

satisfied with the day unless she spent the chief of it by the side of

Mrs. Thorpe, in what they called conversation, but in which there was

scarcely ever any exchange of opinion, and not often any resemblance of

subject, for Mrs. Thorpe talked chiefly of her children, and Mrs. Allen

of her gowns.

The progress of the friendship between Catherine and Isabella was quick

as its beginning had been warm, and they passed so rapidly through

every gradation of increasing tenderness that there was shortly no

fresh proof of it to be given to their friends or themselves. They

called each other by their Christian name, were always arm in arm when

they walked, pinned up each other’s train for the dance, and were not

to be divided in the set; and if a rainy morning deprived them of other

enjoyments, they were still resolute in meeting in defiance of wet and

dirt, and shut themselves up, to read novels together. Yes, novels; for

I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom so common with

novel-writers, of degrading by their contemptuous censure the very

performances, to the number of which they are themselves adding—joining

with their greatest enemies in bestowing the harshest epithets on such

works, and scarcely ever permitting them to be read by their own

heroine, who, if she accidentally take up a novel, is sure to turn over

its insipid pages with disgust. Alas! if the heroine of one novel be

not patronized by the heroine of another, from whom can she expect

protection and regard? I cannot approve of it. Let us leave it to the

reviewers to abuse such effusions of fancy at their leisure, and over

every new novel to talk in threadbare strains of the trash with which

the press now groans. Let us not desert one another; we are an injured

body. Although our productions have afforded more extensive and

unaffected pleasure than those of any other literary corporation in the

world, no species of composition has been so much decried. From pride,

ignorance, or fashion, our foes are almost as many as our readers. And

while the abilities of the nine-hundredth abridger of the History of

England, or of the man who collects and publishes in a volume some

dozen lines of Milton, Pope, and Prior, with a paper from the

Spectator, and a chapter from Sterne, are eulogized by a thousand

pens—there seems almost a general wish of decrying the capacity and

undervaluing the labour of the novelist, and of slighting the

performances which have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend them.

“I am no novel-reader—I seldom look into novels—Do not imagine that _I_

often read novels—It is really very well for a novel.” Such is the

common cant. “And what are you reading, Miss——?” “Oh! it is only a

novel!” replies the young lady, while she lays down her book with

affected indifference, or momentary shame. “It is only Cecilia, or

Camilla, or Belinda”; or, in short, only some work in which the

greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough

knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties,

the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in

the best-chosen language. Now, had the same young lady been engaged

with a volume of the Spectator, instead of such a work, how proudly

would she have produced the book, and told its name; though the chances

must be against her being occupied by any part of that voluminous

publication, of which either the matter or manner would not disgust a

young person of taste: the substance of its papers so often consisting

in the statement of improbable circumstances, unnatural characters, and

topics of conversation which no longer concern anyone living; and their

language, too, frequently so coarse as to give no very favourable idea

of the age that could endure it.