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<h2> CHAPTER 5 </h2>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
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