Austen Said:

Patterns of Diction in Jane Austen's Major Novels

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such ill-timed exercise was of a piece with the strange unseasonableness of his morning walks, and boded nothing good.
To be kept up for hours, after the family were in bed, by stupid pamphlets was not very likely. There must be some deeper cause: something was to be done which could be done only while the household slept; and the probability that Mrs. Tilney yet lived, shut up for causes unknown, and receiving from the pitiless hands of her husband a nightly supply of coarse food,
Shocking as was the idea, it was at least better than a death unfairly hastened, as, in the natural course of things, she must ere long be released. The suddenness of her reputed illness, the absence of her daughter, and probably of her other children, at the time — all favoured the supposition of her imprisonment. Its origin — jealousy perhaps, or wanton cruelty — was yet to be unravelled.
not unlikely that she might that morning have passed near the very spot of this unfortunate woman’s confinement — might have been within a few paces of the cell in which she languished out her days; for what part of the abbey could be more fitted for the purpose than that which yet bore the traces of monastic division? In the high-arched passage, paved with stone, which already she had trodden with peculiar awe, she well remembered the doors of which the general had given no account. To what might not those doors lead?
the forbidden gallery, in which lay the apartments of the unfortunate Mrs. Tilney, must be, as certainly as her memory could guide her, exactly over this suspected range of cells, and the staircase by the side of those apartments of which she had caught a transient glimpse, communicating by some secret means with those cells, might well have favoured the barbarous proceedings of her husband.
Down that staircase she had perhaps been conveyed in a state of well-prepared insensibility!
if judiciously watched, some rays of light from the general’s lamp might glimmer through the lower windows, as he passed to the prison of his wife;
Till midnight,
it would be in vain to watch; but then, when the clock had struck twelve, and all was quiet, she would, if not quite appalled by darkness, steal out and look once more.
who must have been in some way or other her destroyer,
That the general, having erected such a monument, should be able to face it, was not perhaps very strange, and yet that he could sit so boldly collected within its view, maintain so elevated an air, look so fearlessly around, nay, that he should even enter the church,
Not, however, that many instances of beings equally hardened in guilt might not be produced.
dozens who had persevered in every possible vice, going on from crime to crime, murdering whomsoever they chose, without any feeling of humanity or remorse; till a violent death or a religious retirement closed their black career. The erection of the monument itself could not in the smallest degree affect her doubts of Mrs. Tilney’s actual decease. Were she even to descend into the family vault where her ashes were supposed to slumber, were she to behold the coffin in which they were said to be enclosed — what could it avail in such a case?
It would be much better in every respect that Eleanor should know nothing of the matter. To involve her in the danger of a second detection, to court her into an apartment which must wring her heart, could not be the office of a friend. The general’s utmost anger could not be to herself what it might be to a daughter; and, besides,
the examination itself would be more satisfactory if made without any companion. It would be impossible to explain to Eleanor the suspicions, from which the other had, in all likelihood, been hitherto happily exempt; nor could she therefore, in her presence, search for those proofs of the general’s cruelty, which however they might yet have escaped discovery, she felt confident of somewhere drawing forth, in the shape of some fragmented journal, continued to the last gasp.
She could not be mistaken as to the room; but how grossly mistaken in everything else! — in Miss Tilney’s meaning, in her own calculation!
Would the veil in which Mrs. Tilney had last walked, or the volume in which she had last read, remain to tell what nothing else was allowed to whisper? No: whatever might have been the general’s crimes, he had certainly too much wit to let them sue for detection.
It was not only with herself that she was sunk — but with Henry.
Her folly, which now seemed even criminal, was all exposed to him,
and he must despise her forever. The liberty which her imagination had dared to take with the character of his father — could he ever forgive it? The absurdity of her curiosity and her fears — could they ever be forgotten? She hated herself more than she could express. He had — she thought he had, once or twice before this fatal morning, shown something like affection for her. But now —
Charming as were all Mrs. Radcliffe’s works, and charming even as were the works of all her imitators, it was not in them perhaps that human nature, at least in the Midland counties of England, was to be looked for. Of the Alps and Pyrenees, with their pine forests and their vices, they might give a faithful delineation; and Italy, Switzerland, and the south of France might be as fruitful in horrors as they were there represented.
But in the central part of England there was surely some security for the existence even of a wife not beloved, in the laws of the land, and the manners of the age. Murder was not tolerated, servants were not slaves, and neither poison nor sleeping potions to be procured, like rhubarb, from every druggist. Among the Alps and Pyrenees, perhaps, there were no mixed characters. There, such as were not as spotless as an angel might have the dispositions of a fiend. But in England it was not so; among the English,
in their hearts and habits, there was a general though unequal mixture of good and bad.
always judging and acting in future with the greatest good sense,
Henry’s astonishing generosity and nobleness of conduct, in never alluding in the slightest way to what had passed,
Perhaps, if particularly questioned, she might just give an idea — just distantly hint at it — but not more. To expose a friend, such a friend as Isabella had been to her — and then their own brother so closely concerned in it!
she must waive the subject altogether.
She was as insignificant, and perhaps as portionless, as Isabella; and if the heir of the Tilney property had not grandeur and wealth enough in himself, at what point of interest were the demands of his younger brother to rest?
the effect of that particular partiality, which, as she was given to understand by his words as well as his actions, she had from the first been so fortunate as to excite in the general;
some most generous and disinterested sentiments on the subject of money, which she had more than once heard him utter, and which tempted her to think his disposition in such matters misunderstood by his children.
But as it was not to be supposed that Captain Tilney, whenever he made his application, would give his father any just idea of Isabella’s conduct,
highly expedient that Henry should lay the whole business before him as it really was, enabling the general by that means to form a cool and impartial opinion, and prepare his objections on a fairer ground than inequality of situations.
That he was very particular in his eating, she had, by her own unassisted observation, already discovered; but why he should say one thing so positively, and mean another all the while, was most unaccountable! How were people, at that rate, to be understood? Who but Henry could have been aware of what his father was at?
From Saturday to Wednesday, however, they were now to be without Henry.
and Captain Tilney’s letter would certainly come in his absence; and Wednesday
would be wet.
Her brother so unhappy, and her loss in Isabella so great; and Eleanor’s spirits always affected by Henry’s absence! What was there to interest or amuse her?
What a revolution in her ideas! She, who had so longed to be in an abbey! Now, there was nothing so charming to her imagination as the unpretending comfort of a well-connected parsonage, something like Fullerton, but better: Fullerton had its faults, but Woodston probably had none. If Wednesday should ever come!
it was the most comfortable room in the world;
it prettier than any pleasure-ground she had ever been in before, though there was not a shrub in it higher than the green bench in the corner.
it could be three. At four they were to dine, and at six to set off on their return. Never had any day passed so quickly!
nay,
he was even looking at the side-table for cold meat which was not there.
“Write to James on her behalf! No, James should never hear Isabella’s name mentioned by her again.”
Frederick could not be unpardonably guilty, while Henry made himself so agreeable.
to speak to Eleanor about it at once, propose going away, and be guided in her conduct by the manner in which her proposal might be taken.
“Oh! As to that, Papa and Mamma were in no hurry at all. As long as she was happy, they would always be satisfied.”
“Oh! Because she had been there so long.”
his being by far too fine a gentleman to approve of her,
at least they should not meet under such circumstances as would make their meeting materially painful.