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now. I don’t know what they’re trying to dowhether 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 ev-
erything; 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 ex-
claimed ‘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 exqui-
sitely. I mean so picturesquely.’
‘I don’t know that I understand what you mean by be-
having picturesquely, but it seems to me that you do that
always, my dear.’
‘Oh, you lovely man, if I could believe that!’ the girl in-
terrupted.
‘I’m afraid, after all, you won’t have the pleasure of go-
ing 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

100 The Portrait of a Lady