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suit them to be taken at their word.’
‘Of whom are you speaking?’
‘Well, I mean Lord Warburton and his friends—the rad-
icals 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 busi-
ness; 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 per-
suade 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 un-
folded with his quaint distinctness, most attentively, and
though she wag unacquainted with the British aristocra-
cy she found it in harmony with her general impressions

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