Tilneys, at their country seat, Northanger Abbey, in Glouchestershire;
and, on the way thither, young Mr. Tilney teases her with a fancy sketch
of the Gothic horrors which she will unearth there: the "sliding panels
and tapestry"; the remote and gloomy guest chamber, which will be
assigned her, with its ponderous chest and its portrait of a knight in
armor: the secret door, with massy bars and padlocks, that she will
discover behind the arras, leading to a "small vaulted room," and
eventually to a "subterraneous communication between your apartment and
the chapel of St. Anthony scarcely two miles off." Arrived at the abbey,
she is disappointed at the modern appearance of her room, but contrives
to find a secret drawer in an ancient ebony cabinet, and in this a roll
of yellow manuscript which, on being deciphered, proves to be a washing
bill. She is convinced, notwithstanding, that a mysterious door at the
end of a certain gallery conducts to a series of isolated chambers where
General Tilney, who is supposed to be a widower, is keeping his unhappy
wife immured and fed on bread and water. When she finally gains
admission to this Bluebeard's chamber and finds it nothing but a suite of
modern rooms, "the visions of romance were over. . . Charming as were
all Mrs. Radcliffe's works, and charming even as were the works of all
her imitators, it was not in them, perhaps, that human nature, at least
in the midland counties of England was to be looked for."


[1] But compare the passage last quoted with the one from Warton's essay
_ante_, p. 219.

[2] See _ante_, p. 49.

[3] _Spectator_, No. 62.