For centuries, Bath has been a tourist destination for the well-to-do. Just about 15 miles from London, in the days before motorized transport, Bath was just far enough from home to seem like one was "getting away" but not so far as to make returning impossible should something of urgency occur. 

One went to Bath also to be able to *brag* about going to Bath. Here Tinley expresses his sarcastic dismay following Catherine's admission that she does not journal about her every waking moment during her vacation in the leisurely Bath:

"Not keep a journal! How are your absent cousins to understand the tenour of your life in Bath without one? How are the civilities and compliments of every day to be related as they ought to be, unless noted down every evening in a journal? How are your various dresses to be remembered, and the particular state of your complexion, and curl of your hair to be described in all their diversities, without having constant recourse to a journal?"