“Nonsense, my dear man; we are too eclectic to return to paradisaical fashions. Rabelais, with his boisterous jovialty, and sound doctrine of good health united to good spirits, is more to the taste of a race which to this day, in some provinces, speaks his sixteenth-century vernacular, and inherits his practical views of life.” “Ah! but we have read Carlyle, my dear Victor, and seen through the hollowness of our former social fabric.” “_Mon cher ami_, had you carefully read Montaigne, you would know that the great essayist had hurled a stone at the tawdriness of our clothes-screens long before the Recluse of Cheyne Walk. But I forget that you take this kind of thing to heart! You are a _moral_ race—oh! a very moral one—whatever you may do.” “I think, dear Victor, you will be impressed with our national reforms when you are thoroughly acquainted with them.” “Well, well, what is the upshot of all this? I can quite realise the scientific import of the Seer’s discovery; though, for my own part, I should very much object to seeing the inner soul of a Loubet or the secret motives of a Combes. But I can imagine that in business dealings, or in matrimonial transactions, it might be of great advantage to be able to investigate the motives of financiers or of mothers-in-law. Still, I want to know what part _you_, the English aristocracy, are playing in this burlesque?” “We are the leaders in this great bloodless revolution; and we have, owing to our self-abnegation, saved the masses, and rebuilt our social edifice on a stronger basis than before.” “My poor Lionel, that’s been done long ago! Our revolution of 1789 was nothing but a noble renunciation of all prerogatives and privileges on the part of our _noblesse_; still, the outrages of 1793 very soon showed how futile were the attempts at reform—from within.” “Different countries have different customs, dear Victor, and you must never judge our self-controlled commonwealth from the standpoint of your bloodthirsty democracy. It is not so much that our aristocracy is unlike yours, but that your lower classes are utterly different from our own.” “Anyhow, dear Lionel, I have made up my mind to go over and see things for myself.” “Ah, that’s a good fellow! Come along, and we will do all that lies in our power to make you happy. You won’t be bored, I declare; and your visit over here will at all events furnish you with some topics of conversation on your return to Paris.”