what I'm reading...

17 January 2009

from Northanger Abbey

"'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 Camille, 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" (ch. 5).

Jane Austen is wonderfully cheeky in this novel.

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