Portrait of a Lady. Генри Джеймс

only had you to explain things to me in America!” he said. “I was rather puzzled in your country; in fact I was quite bewildered, and the trouble was that the explanations only puzzled me more. You know I think they often gave me the wrong ones on purpose; they're rather clever about that over there. But when I explain you can trust me; about what I tell you there's no mistake.” There was no mistake at least about his being very intelligent and cultivated and knowing almost everything in the world. Although he gave the most interesting and thrilling glimpses Isabel felt he never did it to exhibit himself, and though he had had rare chances and had tumbled in, as she put it, for high prizes, he was as far as possible from making a merit of it. He had enjoyed the best things of life, but they had not spoiled his sense of proportion. His quality was a mixture of the effect of rich experience – oh, so easily come by! – with a modesty at times almost boyish; the sweet and wholesome savour of which – it was as agreeable as something tasted – lost nothing from the addition of a tone of responsible kindness.

      “I like your specimen English gentleman very much,” Isabel said to Ralph after Lord Warburton had gone.

      “I like him too – I love him well,” Ralph returned. “But I pity him more.”

      Isabel looked at him askance. “Why, that seems to me his only fault – that one can't pity him a little. He appears to have everything, to know everything, to be everything.”

      “Oh, he's in a bad way!” Ralph insisted.

      “I suppose you don't mean in health?”

      “No, as to that he's detestably sound. What I mean is that he's a man with a great position who's playing all sorts of tricks with it. He doesn't take himself seriously.”

      “Does he regard himself as a joke?”

      “Much worse; he regards himself as an imposition – as an abuse.”

      “Well, perhaps he is,” said Isabel.

      “Perhaps he is – though on the whole I don't think so. But in that case what's more pitiable than a sentient, self-conscious abuse planted by other hands, deeply rooted but aching with a sense of its injustice? For me, in his place, I could be as solemn as a statue of Buddha. He occupies a position that appeals to my imagination. Great responsibilities, great opportunities, great consideration, great wealth, great power, a natural share in the public affairs of a great country. But he's all in a muddle about himself, his position, his power, and indeed about everything in the world. He's the victim of a critical age; he has ceased to believe in himself and he doesn't know what to believe in. When I attempt to tell him (because if I were he I know very well what I should believe in) he calls me a pampered bigot. I believe he seriously thinks me an awful Philistine; he says I don't understand my time. I understand it certainly better than he, who can neither abolish himself as a nuisance nor maintain himself as an institution.”

      “He doesn't look very wretched,” Isabel observed.

      “Possibly not; though, being a man of a good deal of charming taste, I think he often has uncomfortable hours. But what is it to say of a being of his opportunities that he's not miserable? Besides, I believe he is.”

      “I don't,” said Isabel.

      “Well,” her cousin rejoined, “if he isn't he ought to be!”

      In the afternoon she spent an hour with her uncle on the lawn, where the old man sat, as usual, with his shawl over his legs and his large cup of diluted tea in his hands. In the course of conversation he asked her what she thought of their late visitor.

      Isabel was prompt. “I think he's charming.”

      “He's a nice person,” said Mr. Touchett, “but I don't recommend you to fall in love with him.”

      “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 sympathises 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 realise. 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 was 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