COWPER
“Catherine readily agreed. ‘Only,’ she added, ‘perhaps we may overtake the two young men.’
“‘Oh! never mind that! If we make haste we shall pass by them presently, and I am dying to show you my hat.’
“‘But if we only wait a few minutes there will be no danger of our seeing them at all.’
“‘I shall not pay them any such compliment, I assure you. I have no notion of treating men with such respect. That is the way to spoil them.’
“Catherine had nothing to oppose against such reasoning, and therefore to show the independence of Miss Thorpe and her resolution of humbling the sex, they set off immediately as fast as they could walk in pursuit of the two young men.”
Perhaps Northanger Abbey may be described as the book which real Austenites appreciate most, but which the casual reader does not admire. The story is not interesting, the simplicity of Catherine rather irritating than attractive, and it is the form and the flashes of insight in the book that make it so enjoyable.
The writing, though begun in 1798, spread over a long period, for the book was not finished until 1803, by which time Jane herself was settled in Bath. It was then offered to a Bath bookseller, the equivalent of a publisher in our day. He gave ten pounds for it, probably because of the local colour, but evidently after reading it he found it lacked that melodramatic flavour to which he was accustomed; and it is also highly probable that he did not at all comprehend the delightful flavour of irony. The book remained with him, luckily in safety, until thirteen years had passed, when it was bought back by Henry Austen on his sister’s account for the same sum that had been given for it. When the transaction had been completed he told the bookseller that it was by the author of Sense and Sensibility, which had attracted much attention, whereat the man must have experienced the regret he deserved to feel, as he had missed the honour of introducing Jane to the public, an honour that would have linked his name with genius.