第30章

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 Idon'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 "Ishould 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.

"Well, they want to feel earnest," Mr.Touchett allowed; "but it seems as if they took it out in theories mostly.Their radical views are a kind of amusement; they've got to have some amusement, and they might have coarser tastes than that.You see they're very luxurious, and these progressive ideas are about their biggest luxury.

They make them feel moral and yet don't damage their position.They think a great deal of their position; don't let one of them ever persuade you he doesn't, for if you were to proceed on that basis you'd be pulled up very short."Isabel followed her uncle's argument, which he unfolded with his quaint distinctness, most attentively, and though she wag unacquainted with the British aristocracy she found it in harmony with her general impressions of human nature.But she felt moved to put in a protest on Lord Warburton's behalf."I don't believe Lord Warburton's a humbug; I don't care what the others are.I should like to see Lord Warburton put to the test.""Heaven deliver me from my friends!" Mr.Touchett answered."Lord Warburton's a very amiable young man- a very fine young man.He has a hundred thousand a year.He owns fifty thousand acres of the soil of this little island and ever so many other things besides.He has half a dozen houses to live in.He has a seat in Parliament as Ihave one at my own dinner-table.He has elegant tastes- cares for literature, for art, for science, for charming young ladies.The most elegant is his taste for the new views.It affords him a great deal of pleasure- more perhaps than anything else, except the young ladies.His old house over there- what does he call it, Lockleigh?- is very attractive; but I don't think it's as pleasant as this.That doesn't matter, however- he has so many others.His views don't hurt any one as far as I can see; they certainly don't hurt himself.And if there were to be a revolution he would come off very easily.They wouldn't touch him, they'd leave him as he is: he's too much liked.""Ah, he couldn't be a martyr even if he wished!" Isabel sighed.

"That's a very poor position."

"He'll never be a martyr unless you make him one," said the old man.

Isabel shook her head; there might have been something laughable in the fact that she did it with a touch of melancholy."I shall never make any one a martyr.""You'll never be one, I hope."

"I hope not.But you don't pity Lord Warburton then as Ralph does?

Her uncle looked at her a while with genial acuteness."Yes, I do, after all!"