I could make neither head nor tail of it; it was neither fish, flesh,
nor good red herring: it was all about my Lord, and Sir Harry, and the
Captain.... The people talk such wild gibberish as no folks in their
sober senses ever did talk; and the things that happen to them are not
like the things that ever happen to me or any of my acquaintance. They
are at home one minute, and beyond the sea the next; beggars to-day,
and lords to-morrow; waiting-maids in the morning, and duchesses at
night.... One would think every man in these books had the bank of
England in his escritoire.... In these books (except here and there one,
whom they make worse than Satan himself), every man and woman's child of
them, are all wise, and witty, and generous, and rich, and handsome, and
genteel, and all to the last degree. Nobody is middling, or good in one
thing and bad in another, like my live acquaintance; but it is all up to
the skies, or down to the dirt. I had rather read _Tom Hickathrift_, or
_Jack the Giant Killer_, a thousand times.--HANNAH MORE. _The Two
Wealthy Farmers._
'ONLY A NOVEL'
'What are you reading, Miss----?' 'Oh! it's 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 or
humour, are conveyed to the world in the best chosen language.--JANE
AUSTEN. _Northanger Abbey._