Northanger Abbey

I recently happened to chance across the film on tv, which reminded me this was still one of the two of Austen's I'd not read before. Easily remedied then once I came across the book on the lending bookshelf at work. Having studied Gothic romance in the past, Austen's gentle mocking of her heroine did rather make me smile. It's no Persuasion but it's good to be better acquainted with her earlier work.

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‘But now really, do not you think Udolpho the nicest book in the world?’

‘The nicest; – by which I suppose you mean the neatest. That must depend upon the binding.’
‘Henry,’ said Miss Tilney, ‘you are very impertinent. Miss Morland, he is treating you exactly as he does his sister. He is for ever finding fault with me, for some incorrectness of language, and now he is taking the same liberty with you. The word “nicest,” as you used it, did not suit him; and you had better change it as soon as you can, or we shall be overpowered with Johnson and Blair all the rest of the way.’
‘I am sure,’ cried Catherine, ‘I did not mean to say anything wrong; but it is a nice book, and why should not I call it so?’

‘Very true,’ said Henry, ‘and this is a very nice day, and we are taking a very nice walk, and you are two very nice young ladies. Oh! it is a very nice word indeed! – It does for everything. Originally perhaps it was applied only to express neatness, propriety, delicacy, or refinement; – people were nice in their dress, in their sentiments, or their choice. But now every commendation on every subject is comprised in that one word.’
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Her passion for ancient edifices was next in degree to her passion for Henry Tilney - and castles and abbies made usually the charm of those reveries which his image did not fill.