Today’s quote about women and history, in honor of Women’s History Month, is from Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey. The protagonist, Catherine, is answering an inquiry from her friend Eleanor about the type of reading she enjoys:
I can read poetry and plays, and things of that sort, and do not dislike travels. But history, real solemn history, I cannot be interested in. Can you?”
“Yes, I am fond of history.”
“I wish I were too. I read it a little as a duty, but it tells me nothing that does not either vex or weary me. The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars or pestilences, in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all—it is very tiresome: and yet I often think it odd that it should be so dull, for a great deal of it must be invention.
Pingback: Mombian: Sustenance for Lesbian Moms » Blog Archive » Another Quote for Women’s History Month