Henry Tilney's Diary

When I marry – if I marry – my wife must love to read. I shall make it the one condition. Her dowry is unimportant, her family is irrelevant, but she must be a lover of novels, or else no wedding will take place!

I smiled, for Miss Morland certainly had all the hallmarks of a heroine. She was sweet and innocent and honest and loving.

In the meantime I am winning the respect of my parishioners, who were at first bemused by my sermons but, I flatter myself, now find them refreshing. Certainly attendance has gone up since I was ordained and took over the living, and it cannot all be because I am young and unmarried.

‘You will never make a good villain,’ she said. ‘You will have to resign yourself to being a hero.’ ‘I have been thinking just the same thing, for I have the necessary dark eyes and rather dark hair. Alas, honesty compels me to mention that I do not have a hero’s height, nor his noble mien nor his wounded heart.’

The person, be it a gentleman or a lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid [...].

To be able to tease a woman is surely as important as a part of love as being able to like her or respect her.

Whilst my father and Mrs Hughes talked of their mutual acquaintance, Eleanor said to me, ‘I saw your Miss Morland in the Pump Room.’

‘My Miss Morland?’

‘Is it too early for you to have found your heroine?’
‘Far too early. I have not yet ascertained whether or not she reads novels and that, you know, is to be the deciding factor in my choice of a bride.’

A good turnout at church today. It had nothing to do with the mild weather and a desire to gossip and everything to do with my oratory skills, I am perfectly convinced. Indeed, if not for Mrs Attwood's new bonnet, I would have had the ladies' undivided attention. The gentlemen I was more certain of. They had no interest in bonnets, new or otherwise, and listened in pleasing silence, broken only by an occasional snore.

It is possible to compromise in certain areas when choosing a partner for life, but never on a cravat.