“Oh! no, I only mean what I have read about. It always puts me in mind of the country that Emily and her father travelled through, in The Mysteries of Udolpho . But you never read novels, I dare say?”

“Why not?”

“Because they are not clever enough for you⁠—gentlemen read better books.”

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid. I have read all Mrs. Radcliffe’s works, and most of them with great pleasure. The Mysteries of Udolpho , when I had once begun it, I could not lay down again; I remember finishing it in two days⁠—my hair standing on end the whole time.”