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Austen, Jane

"Northanger Abbey"

Oh! It is a very nice word indeed! It does for everything. Originally perhaps it was applied only to express neatness, propriety, delicacy, or refinement--people were nice in their dress, in their sentiments, or their choice. But now every commendation on every subject is comprised in that one word."


? ? ? ? "While, in fact," cried his sister, "it ought only to be applied to you, without any commendation at all. You are more nice than wise. Come, Miss Morland, let us leave him to meditate over our faults in the utmost propriety of diction, while we praise Udolpho in whatever terms we like best. It is a most interesting work. You are fond of that kind of reading?"


? ? ? ? "To say the truth, I do not much like any other."


? ? ? ? "Indeed!"


? ? ? ? "That is, I can read poetry and plays, and things of that sort, and do not dislike travels. But history, real solemn history, I cannot be interested in. Can you?"


? ? ? ? "Yes, I am fond of history."


? ? ? ? "I wish I were too. I read it a little as a duty, but it tells me nothing that does not either vex or weary me. The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars or pestilences, in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all--it is very tiresome: and yet I often think it odd that it should be so dull, for a great deal of it must be invention.


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