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TO BARON BUNSEN. - 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 BARON BUNSEN.

My dear Sir,

I wrote a few lines to you from Paris, when I was in great distress. I had just lost my father. I have now returned to the quiet of the country, and I write to thank you properly for the book which you sent to me through our excellent friend.* I do indeed feel the value of the present. As Mrs. Grote told you, I followed with intense interest all the discussion to which you gave rise in the Augsburg Gazette. I read the analysis of your work, and understood its spirit and its tendency. This glimpse made me wish to see the book itself. You have gratified me in the most agreeable manner, as I possess it given to me by you. I am reading, but I have not yet finished it; for I am not a first-rate German scholar, and, besides, such subjects cannot be studied quickly. But, as I go on, I find all the interest that I expected in your pages. I find the liberal spirit which struck me, even in the analysis; a spirit rare in itself, and peculiarly delightful when found in a lively theological discussion. I understand still better the sensation produced by your book in Germany, a sensation which has not yet ceased.

I do not know if you have received the volume which I have just published, “L’Ancien Régime et la Révolution.” More than three weeks ago I sent it to M. Frank, a German bookseller, who promised to forward it to you. I am most anxious that this book should obtain the approval of so great a judge of political and historical literature. I think that it contains much that is new, and that will interest you.

I admire, Sir, the indefatigable activity with which you turn your leisure to account. I own that I am somewhat ashamed to see how little I have done during nearly four years that I have been similarly occupied, when I consider that the number of your works has not injured their depth, nor their brilliancy. May you long preserve this extraordinary vigour and fertility of mind. This must be the ardent wish of all who are interested in the progress of mankind.

Again receive my best thanks, and believe me yours truly and respectfully, &c.

[*]“The Signs of the Times,” transmitted through Mrs. Grote.