Northanger Abbey, chapter 25: A Disengaging Prospect
It’s hard to think that a person like Cat, who doesn’t have a superior complex, who is generous and modest in her assumptions about people (most of the time), and who is generally kind and thoughtful, would need to be “humbled.” But she does. And she has been, thanks to Henry, who “ha[s] more thoroughly opened her eyes to the extravagance of her late fancies than all their several disappointments had done.” Maybe it’s because she possesses these qualities that Cat doesn’t torture herself for the rest of her stay, or even for rest of the evening. She later joins the household and Henry seems incredibly empathetic to her state of mind, which, combined with his decision to not raise the subject again, helps soothe Cat’s agitation. She reflects that “it had been all a voluntary, self–created delusion, that “[her] mind … had been craving to be frightened,” and that “among the English … there was a general though unequal mixture of good and bad.” This passage in particular employs some in...
