"It's what I call downright Radical nonsense," said Mrs. Low, nodding her head energetically. "Portrait indeed! Why should we want to have a portrait of ignorance and ugliness? What we all want is to have things quiet and orderly."
"Then you'd better have a paternal government at once," said Phineas.
"Just so," said Mr. Low,—"only that what you call a paternal government is not always quiet and orderly. National order I take to be submission to the law. I should not think it quiet and orderly if I were sent to Cayenne without being brought before a jury."
"But such a man as you would not be sent to Cayenne," said Phineas,
"My next-door neighbour might be,—which would be almost as bad. Let him be sent to Cayenne if he deserves it, but let a jury say that he has deserved it. My idea of government is this,—that we want to be governed by law and not by caprice, and that we must have a legislature to make our laws. If I thought that Parliament as at present established made the laws badly, I would desire a change; but I doubt whether we shall have them better from any change in Parliament which Reform will give us."
"Of course not," said Mrs. Low. "But we shall have a lot of beggars put on horseback, and we all know where they ride to."
Then Phineas became aware that it is not easy to convince any man or any woman on a point of politics,—not even though he who argues may have an eloquent letter from a philosophical Cabinet Minister in his pocket to assist him.