Jane Austen's Description of a Novel in The Speaker of Mandarin

In Ruth Rendell's murder mystery, "The Speaker of Mandarin," Chief Inspector Reg Wexford, paraphrased this quote from Jane Austen's novel, Northanger Abbey:

Oh! it is only a novel!" replies the young lady, while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame. "It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda"; or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language. [Source]

In "The Speaker of Mandarin," Inspector Wexford toured mainland China and encountered an English tourist who was subsequently murdered in Wexford's English jurisdiction. 

Information about the TV version of "The Speaker of Mandarin" can be found here.