Chapter: No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have
supposed her born to be an heroine. Her situation in life, the character
of her father and mother, her own person and disposition, were
all equally against her. Her father was a clergyman, without being
neglected, or poor, and a very respectable man, though his name
was Richard--and he had never been handsome. He had a considerable
independence besides two good livings--and he was not in the least
addicted to locking up his daughters. Her mother was a woman of useful
plain sense, with a good temper, and, what is more remarkable, with a
good constitution. She had three sons before Catherine was born; and
instead of dying in bringing the latter into the world, as anybody might
expect, she still lived on--lived to have six children more--to see them
growing up around her, and to enjoy excellent health herself. A family
of ten children will be always called a fine family, where there are
heads and arms and legs enough for the number; but the Morlands had
little other right to the word, for they were in general very plain, and
Catherine, for many years of her life, as plain as any. She had a thin
awkward figure, a sallow skin without colour, dark lank hair, and strong
features--so much for her person; and not less unpropitious for heroism
seemed her mind. She was fond of all boy's plays, and greatly preferred
cricket not merely to dolls, but to the more heroic enjoyments of
infancy, nursing a dormouse, feeding a canary-bird, or watering a
rose-bush. Indeed she had no taste for a garden; and if she gathered
flowers at all, it was chiefly for the pleasure of mischief--at least
so it was conjectured from her always preferring those which she was
forbidden to take. Such were her propensities--her abilities were quite
as extraordinary. She never could learn or understand anything
before she was taught; and sometimes not even then, for she was often
inattentive, and occasionally stupid. Her mother was three months in
teaching her only to repeat the "Beggar's Petition"; and after all, her
next sister, Sally, could say it better than she did. Not that Catherine
was always stupid--by no means; she learnt the fable of "The Hare and
Many Friends" as quickly as any girl in England. Her mother wished her
to learn music; and Catherine was sure she should like it, for she was
very fond of tinkling the keys of the old forlorn spinnet; so, at eight
years old she began. She learnt a year, and could not bear it; and Mrs.
Morland, who did not insist on her daughters being accomplished in
spite of incapacity or distaste, allowed her to leave off. The day which
dismissed the music-master was one of the happiest of Catherine's life.
Her taste for drawing was not superior; though whenever she could obtain
the outside of a letter from her mother or seize upon any other odd
piece of paper, she did what she could in that way, by drawing houses
and trees, hens and chickens, all very much like one another. Writing
and accounts she was taught by her father; French by her mother: her
proficiency in either was not remarkable, and she shirked her lessons in
both whenever she could. What a strange, unaccountable character!--for
with all these symptoms of profligacy at ten years old, she had neither
a bad heart nor a bad temper, was seldom stubborn, scarcely ever
quarrelsome, and very kind to the little ones, with few interruptions
of tyranny; she was moreover noisy and wild, hated confinement and
cleanliness, and loved nothing so well in the world as rolling down the
green slope at the back of the house.

Such was Catherine Morland at ten. At fifteen, appearances were mending;
she began to curl her hair and long for balls; her complexion improved,
her features were softened by plumpness and colour, her eyes gained more
animation, and her figure more consequence. Her love of dirt gave way to
an inclination for finery, and she grew clean as she grew smart; she had
now the pleasure of sometimes hearing her father and mother remark
on her personal improvement. "Catherine grows quite a good-looking
girl--she is almost pretty today," were words which caught her ears now
and then; and how welcome were the sounds! To look almost pretty is an
acquisition of higher delight to a girl who has been looking plain the
first fifteen years of her life than a beauty from her cradle can ever
receive.

Mrs. Morland was a very good woman, and wished to see her children
everything they ought to be; but her time was so much occupied in
lying-in and teaching the little ones, that her elder daughters were
inevitably left to shift for themselves; and it was not very wonderful
that Catherine, who had by nature nothing heroic about her, should
prefer cricket, baseball, riding on horseback, and running about
the country at the age of fourteen, to books--or at least books of
information--for, provided that nothing like useful knowledge could be
gained from them, provided they were all story and no reflection, she
had never any objection to books at all. But from fifteen to seventeen
she was in training for a heroine; she read all such works as heroines
must read to supply their memories with those quotations which are so
serviceable and so soothing in the vicissitudes of their eventful lives.

From Pope, she learnt to censure those who

   "bear about the mockery of woe."


From Gray, that

   "Many a flower is born to blush unseen,
   "And waste its fragrance on the desert air."


From Thompson, that--

   "It is a delightful task
   "To teach the young idea how to shoot."


And from Shakespeare she gained a great store of information--amongst
the rest, that--

   "Trifles light as air,
   "Are, to the jealous, confirmation strong,
   "As proofs of Holy Writ."


That

   "The poor beetle, which we tread upon,
   "In corporal sufferance feels a pang as great
   "As when a giant dies."


And that a young woman in love always looks--

   "like Patience on a monument
   "Smiling at Grief."


So far her improvement was sufficient--and in many other points she came
on exceedingly well; for 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, of her own
composition, she could listen to other people's performance 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. At present she did not know
her own poverty, for she had no lover to portray. She had reached the
age of seventeen, without having seen one amiable youth who could call
forth her sensibility, without having inspired one real passion, and
without having excited even any admiration but what was very moderate
and very transient. This was strange indeed! But strange things may be
generally accounted for if their cause be fairly searched out. There was
not one lord in the neighbourhood; no--not even a baronet. There was not
one family among their acquaintance who had reared and supported a boy
accidentally found at their door--not one young man whose origin
was unknown. Her father had no ward, and the squire of the parish no
children.

But when a young lady is to be a heroine, the perverseness of forty
surrounding families cannot prevent her. Something must and will happen
to throw a hero in her way.

Mr. Allen, who owned the chief of the property about Fullerton, the
village in Wiltshire where the Morlands lived, was ordered to Bath
for the benefit of a gouty constitution--and his lady, a good-humoured
woman, fond of Miss Morland, and probably aware that if adventures will
not befall a young lady in her own village, she must seek them abroad,
invited her to go with them. Mr. and Mrs. Morland were all compliance,
and Catherine all happiness.

 The first chapter introduces the reader to the protagonist of the novel, Catherine Morland. Seventeen years old, Catherine has grown up in a family of modest wealth in the rural town Fullerton in Hampshire, England. As a young girl, we are told, Catherine had many interests, including piano-playing and drawing, but she was never interested enough to be accomplished at anything. She was a cheerful child with a good temper. But she was also something of a tomboy: "she was. noisy and wild, hated confinement and cleanliness, and loved nothing so well in the world as rolling down the green slope at the back of the house. As she became a teenager, says the narrator, Catherine began to grow more beautiful, and eventually she turned from her athletic pursuits, such as cricket and horseback riding, to reading books. Catherine became a voracious reader. She has never had a love interest. At the end of the chapter, the Allens, a wealthy, childless couple who are friends of the Morlands, offer to take Catherine with them on a trip to the resort town of Bath. With her parents' permission, Catherine accepts

