There is nothing I would not do for those who…

The line comes in chapter 6 of Northanger Abbey, in Bath, where young Catherine Morland has become the fast friend of Isabella Thorpe. The two talk of The Mysteries of Udolpho, which Catherine is devouring, and Isabella reads out a list of “horrid” novels to share next. Then she praises a friend, Miss Andrews, “as beautiful as an angel”, and boasts that she scolds the men for not admiring her.

The declaration follows, then more of the same: “My attachments are always excessively strong.” If anyone spoke slightingly of Catherine, she says, she would “fire up in a moment”. The reader soon learns to distrust such superlatives: Isabella becomes engaged to Catherine’s brother James, then flirts with the wealthier Captain Tilney, and her friendship proves as hollow as her words.

Austen wrote the novel in the late 1790s, a gentle parody of the Gothic novels then in fashion; the titles on Isabella’s list are all real. Sold to a publisher who never printed it, the book appeared only after her death, in 1817.

Northanger Abbey, Chapter 6 (Isabella Thorpe), 1817

Checked word for word in the work itself.

Read the passage in the work