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TO THE COMTE DE CIRCOURT. - 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 THE COMTE DE CIRCOURT.

St. Cyr, August 13, 1853.

I reproach myself, dear M. de Circourt, for not having yet answered your long and interesting letter. I should have done so the next day if I had followed my inclination. I could not help reading the chief portions of it to Madame de Tocqueville and to Ampère, who is staying with us. It was decided that I should thank you on behalf of the company. Let me hope that you will not allow our correspondence to end here, and that you will not refuse to tell me now and then what is going on in the world, of which I am now as ignorant as if I lived in a desert island, or at the bottom of the cistern in which M. Jaubert passed six months.

Still, I do not complain much of my solitude; I find it better for my mind than the frivolous, barren excitement of Parisian society, where one hears nothing but far-off, and often untrue, rumours of what takes place in the political world. I lived too long in the centre of affairs not to tire very soon of on-dits. But I shall never be tired of hearing judgments on the past, and conjectures as to future events, when these conjectures and judgments are the workings of a mind in whose intelligence and perspicacity I place the fullest confidence.

We have, at last, established ourselves here comfortably. We have a good house, well situated, exposed neither to wind nor damp, in short, a proper habitation for a sick man. I hope that I shall succeed in regaining my health here. My work is sufficient to employ, yet not to fatigue my mind. I advance, therefore, very slowly; but my first object was to grow strong again; and besides, why should I hurry? Public life is certainly not likely soon again to be open to me; and in the new existence created for me by the event of December, 1852, I ought rather to fear than to desire to come to the end of my book.

Your letter, which I began by praising, has one great defect. You do not tell me enough about Madame de Circourt—what she has been doing since I last had the pleasure of seeing her; how she spends her time in the country. All these details would have interested me. Ampère desires me to say that he feels much gratified by your invitation. I think that he would like nothing better than to accept it; but I acknowledge that I oppose your cause with all my might. I hope that we shall keep him till the end of September. Pray forgive me for serving you so ill. My excuse is that I foresee a long separation from my excellent friend. Ampère, who, as you know, shares the travelling propensities of the swallow, will, I think, spend the autumn, and probably the winter, in Italy.