Miseducation of Catherine Morland (4)

Last time for that sentence:

They were viewing the country with the eyes of persons accustomed to drawing, and decided on its capability of being formed into pictures, with all the eagerness of real taste.

We now can have no doubt, the crack about "real taste" is meant to be ironic and note who and what the irony is targeting.

First it is aimed at the Tilneys, particularly at Henry Tilney. Arch he may be but that won't get him off the hook here; he contributes to Catherine's miseducation. He will do more by building up the Gothic horrors of Northanger Abbey in Catherine's imagination in book 2.

Second, Austen is commenting on the way the picturesque can distort our feelings. More on this later but a devotion to the picturesque is often a sign of moral shallowness in Austen. For my purposes right now the important thing is that Austen is not picking on Ann Radcliffe here. The disconnection is not complete; the picturesque does play a part in Radcliffe, not surprisingly for, like Catherine Morland, she never had been to the places she discusses in her books. But it is not reading that book that is confusing Catherine here—it is learning about the picturesque from Henry that does the job.