" In almost every detail
she is a refreshing contrast to the traditional type. Two
long-lived conventions--the fragile mother, who dies at the
heroine's birth, and the tyrannical father--are repudiated at the
very outset; and Catherine is one of a family of seven. We cannot
conceive that Mrs. Radcliffe's heroines even at the age of ten
would "love nothing so well in the world as rolling down the
green slope at the back of the house." Her accomplishments lack
the brilliance and distinction of those of Adela and Julia, but,
"Though she could not write sonnets she brought herself
to read them; and though there seemed no chance of her
throwing a whole party into raptures by a prelude on
the pianoforte, she could listen to other people's
performances with very little fatigue. Her greatest
deficiency was in the pencil--she had no notion of
drawing, not enough even to attempt a sketch of her
lover's profile, that she might be detected in the
design. There she fell miserably short of the true
heroic height...Not one started with rapturous wonder
on beholding her...nor was she once called a divinity
by anybody."
She had no lover at the age of seventeen,
"because there was not a lord in the neighbourhood--not
even a baronet.
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