‘I shall not do it then; I shall never fall in love but on your recommendation. Moreover,’ Isabel added, ‘my cousin gives me rather a sad account of Lord Warburton.’

‘Oh, indeed? I don’t know what there may be to say, but you must remember that Ralph must talk.’

‘He thinks your friend’s too subversive—or not subversive enough! I don’t quite understand which,’ said Isabel.

The old man shook his head slowly, smiled and put down his cup. ‘I don’t know which either. He goes very far, but it’s quite possible he doesn’t go far enough. He seems to want to do away with a good many things, but he seems to want to remain himself. I suppose that’s natural, but it’s rather inconsistent.’

‘Oh, I hope he’ll remain himself,’ said Isabel. ‘If he were to be done away with his friends would miss him sadly.’

‘Well,’ said the old man, ‘I guess he’ll stay and amuse his friends. I should certainly miss him very much here at Gardencourt. He always amuses me when he comes over, and I think he amuses himself as well. There’s a considerable number like him, round in society; they’re very fashionable just now. I don’t know what they’re trying to do—whether they’re trying to get up a revolution. I hope at any rate they’ll put it off till after I’m gone. You see they want to disestablish everything; but I’m a pretty big landowner here, and I don’t want to be disestablished. I wouldn’t have come over if I had thought they were going to behave like that,’ Mr Touchett went on with expanding hilarity. ‘I came over because I thought England was a safe country. I call it a regular fraud if they are going to introduce any considerable changes; there’ll be a large number disappointed in that case.’

‘Oh, I do hope they’ll make a revolution!’ Isabel exclaimed. ‘I should delight in seeing a revolution.’

‘Let me see,’ said her uncle, with a humorous intention; ‘I forget whether you’re on the side of the old or on the side of the new. I’ve heard you take such opposite views.’

‘I’m on the side of both. I guess I’m a little on the side of everything. In a revolution—after it was well begun—I think I should be a high, proud loyalist. One sympathizes more with them, and they’ve a chance to behave so exquisitely. I mean so picturesquely.’

‘I don’t know that I understand what you mean by behaving picturesquely, but it seems to me that you do that always, my dear.’

‘Oh, you lovely man, if I could believe that!’ the girl interrupted.

‘I’m afraid, after all, you won’t have the pleasure of going gracefully to the guillotine here just now,’ Mr Touchett went on. ‘If you want to see a big outbreak you must pay us a long visit. You see, when you come to the point it wouldn’t suit them to be taken at their word.’

‘Of whom are you speaking?’

‘Well, I mean Lord Warburton and his friends—the radicals of the upper class. Of course I only know the way it strikes me. They talk about the changes, but I don’t think they quite realize. You and I, you know, we know what it is to have lived under democratic institutions: I always thought them very comfortable, but I was used to them from the first. And then I ain’t a lord; you’re a lady, my dear, but I ain’t a lord. Now over here I don’t think it quite comes home to them. It’s a matter of every day and every hour, and I don’t think many of them would find it as pleasant as what they’ve got. Of course if they want to try, it’s their own business; but I expect they won’t try very hard.’

‘Don’t you think they’re sincere?’ Isabel asked.


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