] Stuart Tave called the Thorpes "those determined shapers of life." John Thorpe appears and immediately begins to remake space and time to fit his own imaginings and doesn't allow simple arithmetic to hamper him. The distance from Tetbury to Bath changes from 23 to 25 miles; it took them not 3 1/2 hours to drive the distance, but only 2 1/2...

Absolutely, but there is something I missed the first time I read NA which was during the last group read of the novel. After making all that fuss about the distance being 25 miles, we get this a bit later in the same conversation in the discussion of the carriage:

JT tells (not asks, mind you) Catherine that he will take her out in the carriage to Landsdown Hill the next day. She is distressed at the probable impropriety of it and searches for an excuse.

Catherine: "Thank you; but will not your horse want rest?"

JT: "Rest! he has only come three and twenty miles;

all nonsense; nothing ruins horses so much as rest;

LOL!

]Isn't it fab? Someone once said that John Thorpe would be a used car salesman today. I can see that.

Don't you just love it!