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Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow TO MADAME SWETCHINE. - Memoir, Letters, and Remains of Alexis de Tocqueville, vol. 2

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TO MADAME SWETCHINE. - 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 MADAME SWETCHINE.

You are too kind, Madame, when you are grateful for my confidence; for gratitude is due only where there has been an effort. My confidence in you has always been instinctive and involuntary. It was not, I confess, your eminent intelligence, nor the halo of virtue surrounding you, that subjugated me; it was the real sensibility, the truthfulness of thought and of feeling, still more rare, which distinguish you. I am not one of those who think all men false and treacherous. Many people are sincere in important affairs and on great occasions, but scarcely any are so in the trifles of every day; scarcely any exhibit their true feelings, but merely those which they think useful or popular; scarcely any, in ordinary conversation, seek and express their real opinions, instead of searching for what will sound ingenious or clever. This is the kind of sincerity which is rare, particularly, I must say, among women and in drawing-rooms, where even kindness has its artifices. You had from the first day I saw you my full confidence, and you have retained it. . . .

Your last letter wandered in search of me for two days. It went first to my brother. I believe, because you gave me a title. I never assumed one. I did not do so thirty years’ ago, when I entered the world—I thought myself too young. I got accustomed to be known by my Christian name, and I have kept to it.