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TO J. S. MILL, ESQ. - Alexis de Tocqueville, Memoir, Letters, and Remains of Alexis de Tocqueville, vol. 2 [1861]

Edition used:

Memoir, Letters, and Remains of Alexis de Tocqueville. Translated from the French by the translator of Napoleon’s Correspondence with King Joseph. With large Additions. In Two Volumes (London: Macamillan, 1861). 2 vols.

Part of: Memoir, Letters, and Remains of Alexis de Tocqueville, 2 vols.

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TO J. S. MILL, ESQ.

My dear Mill,

The letter that you wrote to me last Monday did not reach me till yesterday evening. I answer it immediately, lest my letter should not find you. I cannot tell you how much I am annoyed at not being now in Paris. I should have liked particularly to receive you and introduce you to my wife, who already is acquainted with you as one of my best friends.

Thank you for the interest which you express in the “Democracy.” The delightful tour that I have just made in Switzerland has somewhat injured its progress. I have lost three precious months. I have therefore shut myself up in the little valley of Baugy to make up, if possible, for the time that I have wasted. I have found it hard to set to work. Thank God, I have got into training again, and I should now like not to leave off till I have finished. My subject is beginning to oppress my mind as a nightmare does the body. My head is full of ideas, of which the order is not yet clear to me, and which I must consider singly. I should like to run, but I can only drag myself slowly along. You know that I never take up my pen to support a system, or to draw, whether wrongly or rightly, certain conclusions. I give myself up to the natural flow of my ideas, allowing myself in good faith to be led from one consequence to another. Therefore, till my work is finished, I never know exactly what result I shall reach, or if I shall arrive at any. This uncertainty becomes in the end insupportable. If you will come here, my dear Mill, it will give me great pleasure to talk over all these matters with you, and to puzzle you with the ideas which now confuse my head. . . .

I have not seen the article in the Quarterly, nor that in the American Review. As to the reproof addressed to me by the latter, that I am too much given to generalising, I believe it to be well-founded. I often was forced to do so, in order that the general features of the country, which I was especially anxious to bring out, might be understood clearly in Europe. America was only the frame, my picture was Democracy.

I have only a little bit of paper left to tell you about France. I would in no case say much, for I should have too much to say if I were once to begin. I will speak only of the ministry, which is the event of the day. . . .

TO N. W. SENIOR, ESQ.

My dear Mr. Senior,

I did not reach Paris till the end of December, and received only two days ago your report on the Poor-laws and the Treatise on Political Economy, which you were so kind as to send to me by Mr. Greg. A thousand thanks to you for having thought of me. You could not have given me anything that I should have liked better than your outline of Political Economy. I have long felt that I was insufficiently informed on this important portion of human science, and I have often thought that you were the man in the world most capable of supplying this deficiency. All that you write is much valued by me, but especially on the subject of political economy.

I have not yet, however, been able to read what you have sent to me. I put it off to a period which is not far off, when I shall be free. Just now I am so wrapped up in my second work on America, that I scarcely see or hear what is going on round me. I think that my book will be finished in the summer, and published next autumn. I do not know if it will be good; but I can affirm that I cannot make it better. I devote to it all my time and all my intelligence.

Our ministry is still in a dubious state* . . . . Pray present my respects to Lord and Lady Lansdowne.

[*]Sic in orig.—Tr.