‘Historians,you think,’said Miss Tilney,‘are not happy in their flights of fancy.They display imagination without raising interest.I am fond of history and am very well contented to take the false with the true.In the principal facts they have sources of intelligence in former histories and records,which may be as much depended on,I conclude,as anything that does not actually pass under one's own observation;and as for the little embellishments you speak of,they are embellishments,and I like them as such.If a speech be well drawn up,I read it with pleasure,by whomsoever it may be made and probably with much greater,if the production of Mr Hume or Mr Robertson,than if the genuine words of Caractacus,Agricola,or Alfred the Great.’
‘You are fond of history! and so are Mr Allen and my father;and I have two brothers who do not dislike it.So many instances within my small circle of friends is remarkable!At this rate,I shall not pity the writers of history any longer.If people like to read their books,it is all very well,but to be at so much trouble in filling great volumes,which,as I used to think,nobody would willingly ever look into,to be labouring only for the torment of little boys and girls,always struck me as a hard fate;and though I know it is all very right and necessary,I have often wondered at the person's courage that could sit down on purpose to do it.’
‘That little boys and girls should be tormented,’said Henry,‘is what no one at all acquainted with human nature in a civilised state can deny;but in behalf of our most distinguished historians,I must observe,that they might well be offended at being supposed to have no higher aim;and that by their method and style,they are perfectly well qualified to torment readers of the most advanced reason and mature time of life.I use the verb “to torment,”as I observed to be your own method,instead of “to instruct,”supposing them to be now admitted as synonymous.’
‘You think me foolish to call instruction a torment,but if you had been as much used as myself to hear poor little children first learning their letters and then learning to spell,if you had ever seen how stupid they can be 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 every day of my life at home,you would allow that to torment and to instruct might sometimes be used as synonymous words.’
‘Very probably.But historians are not accountable for the difficulty of learning to read;and even you yourself,who do not altogether seem particularly friendly to very severe,very intense application,may perhaps be brought to acknowledge that it is very well worth while to be tormented for two or three years of one's life,for the sake of being able to read all the rest of it.Consider if reading had not been taught,Mrs Radcliffe would have written in vain or perhaps might not have written at all.’
Catherine assented and a very warm panegyric from her on that lady's merits,closed the subject. The Tilneys were soon engaged in another on which she 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 an high hill,and that a clear blue sky was no longer a proof of a fine day.She was heartily ashamed of her ignorance.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 have the misfortune of knowing anything,should conceal it as well as she can.
