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  ...very few notions she had entertained on the matter before. It seemed as if a good view were no longer to be taken from the top of an high hill, and that a clear blue sky was no longer a proof of a fine day. She was heartily ashamed of her ignorance. A misplaced shame. Where people wish to attach, they should always be ignorant. To come with a well-informed mind is to come with an inability of administering to the vanity of others, which a sensible person would always wish to avoid. A woman, especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.  
The advantages of natural folly in a beautiful girl have been already set forth by the capital pen of a sister author; and to her treatment of the subject I will only add, in justice to men, that though to the larger and more trifling part of the sex, imbecility in females is a great enhancement of their personal charms, there is a portion of them too reasonable and too well informed themselves to desire anything more in woman than ignorance. But Catherine did not know her own...
 
Austen, Jane

Excerpt from Northanger Abbey · This quote is tagged Misfortunes · Search on Google Books to find all references and sources for this quotation.

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A little bit about Austen, Jane

Jane Austen (December 16, 1775 July 18, 1817) was a prominent English novelist whose work is considered part of the Western canon. Her insights into women's lives and her mastery of form and irony made her arguably the most noted and influential novelist of her era. · Can we improve this biography? Post your version

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