…and Henry is just the person to give it to her. ;-)

I really feel as if this confrontation between Catherine and Henry is the climax of the novel, not when the General expels Catherine from Northanger Abbey. It is the moment when Catherine finally grows up. The scales fall from her eyes and she sees clearly what she has been doing to herself and others with her wild imaginings.

When they meet in the hallway outside his mother’s room, to give her credit, Catherine does not lie about where she was or what she was doing – she is incapable of such, especially to Henry. But she is not above trying to change the subject, but Henry keeps coming back to it, making her tell more until finally he knows what she’s been about. Henry now, has become the “close questioner.”

His dressing down is masterful.

“What have you been judging from? Remember the country and the age in which we live. Remember that we are English," [don’t you love this bit? English people are too sensible to give in to flights of fancy! LOL!] … "Consult your own understanding, your own sense of the probable, your own observation of what is passing around you.”

He forces her to confront herself, to think for herself and not to let books do it for her. Wonderful stuff. And he ends it with “Dearest Miss Morland, what ideas have you been admitting?" I think the “dearest” very telling – he cares for her very much and wishes to help her, though he must also be angry with her.

But where Henry really shines is when next they meet at dinner that evening.

”…the only difference in his behaviour to her was that he paid her rather more attention than usual. Catherine had never wanted comfort more, and he looked as if he was aware of it.” [Italics mine] … “Henry's astonishing generosity and nobleness of conduct, in never alluding in the slightest way to what had passed, was of the greatest assistance to her…”