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Subject Area: Political Theory

TO LORD RADNOR. - 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 LORD RADNOR.

I leave London, my lord, to-morrow. I cannot do so without thanking you for all your kindness, and telling you how much I enjoyed my visit to you: I regret only that it was not longer. You know my curiosity; and among its objects none interest me more than the relations between different classes of men, and their respective circumstances. These facts, I think, explain the most important social problems. I should have delighted in studying a part of the population neglected by almost every traveller, that of the middle and lower rural classes—to study their mode of life, their moral and religious education, and their management of their own affairs. Lady Mary would, perhaps, have permitted me to visit with her your cottages. She would, I think, have found me a sympathising companion, anxious to receive all the information which she would have been kind enough to give me. I had not time for so useful and agreeable an employment, and when shall I have another opportunity? You are so good as to ask me to return; but my life is so arranged at present as to admit of little travelling. My last tour will be full of precious recollections, and the best will belong to Coleshill.