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TO M. J. J. AMPÈRE. - 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 M. J. J. AMPÈRE.

Your letter, dear friend, has given us the greatest pleasure. I say us, for my wife was as anxious as I was, that you should be tolerably comfortable among our ruins; and she is as much gratified as I am, by the kind manner in which you tell us that we succeeded. After all, dear Ampère, you ought to have been satisfied. One must always be happy with people who welcome one with so much delight, and take leave of one with so much sorrow. Really attached friends are rarer than comfortable quarters. This is what I hope you often said to yourself, when you were half-deafened by the knocking of hammers and pickaxes. As for us, we have the most agreeable recollections of your visit; and all we beg is, that you will come again soon. We have already asked you, and now we repeat our invitation in the most pressing terms. This is no compliment, but our sincere and earnest wish.

Your opinion of my book pleases me much. You would not hide from me the truth. I therefore believe you; and I shall read your letters over again, whenever I am seized by one of my attacks of spleen. Your visit had already done me great good in that respect. You seemed to like what you read, and that encouraged me.

I have not forgotten your promise to look over my MS. On the day after you went I sent for a copyist. I cannot tell you how obliged I feel for the trouble that you are willing to take. You could not have made me a more friendly and agreeable proposal.

This morning I was greatly embarrassed. Reading over a chapter on the way in which “democracy modifies the relations between masters and servants,” I fell upon a long passage, treating of domestic service in feudal times. I believe that my ideas on this subject are correct; but I fear that they will seem mere theories. I want two or three examples, taken from contemporary writers. But I can recall none distinctly, although I have a confused impression of having met with many, from Froissart down to Madame de Sevigné. If you can remember any, pray remind me of them. What I particularly wish to describe is the state of things frequent in the aristocratic centuries, when servants threw their whole pride and their whole existence into the persons of their masters. Caleb Balderstone, in the “Bride of Lammermoor,” is the ideal of such a character; but I do not know if he has an historical prototype.

Forgive me, dear friend, for persecuting you with myself. I am not afraid, because I feel how deeply I am interested in all your concerns. This encourages me in the belief that you are equally willing to take part in mine.