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TO MRS. HOLLOND. - 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 MRS. HOLLOND.

Tocqueville, August 9, 1857.

The torrent by which I was carried away in London, and the suddenness of my departure, defeated, Madame, to my great regret, my intention of taking leave of you. But the copy which you gave me of your book is a recollection which can never be effaced. I brought it to this place, and Madame de Tocqueville and I have been reading it with great delight. It fulfilled as a whole the expectations raised in me by the first hundred pages. Your narrative is most attractive, above all, from its simplicity—a merit rare, and peculiarly appropriate to your subject. The painter forgets herself in her picture. The judgments are sober, moderate, and just; without ambition or affectation. Your book pleased and interested us from the first page to the last; and you bestowed upon us an intellectual enjoyment which left a salutary moral effect. These were, I believe, your objects, and you have attained them perfectly.

What you say of Channing’s reserved address explains my impression on my visit to him in 1831, at Boston. I thought him cold. I had been excited by his writings, but his conversation froze me. I was somewhat displeased, and never returned, and now regret my lost opportunity. But I knew well the Tuckermans whom you so well describe. Mr. Tuckerman and I were brought together by our common interest in prisons. The attractiveness of his admirable character made me see him frequently. What struck me as peculiarly loveable was not so much the immense good that he did, nor the labour which he underwent for that purpose, as the pleasure which he took in this sacred employment, and the frankness with which he expressed that pleasure. I remember his saying, “If God will allow me to continue to reside near ——— Street (the poorest in Boston), and pass there a part of every day, I ask for nothing more; I shall be perfectly happy.”

You have struck me by your vivid picture of one of the finest of Channing’s moral and intellectual features. Though Channing, from his lofty point of view, looked calmly on the character and the destiny of the whole human race, he considered greatness to depend upon the individual man. It was the individual whom he wished to see great, independent, noble, and free. Though some of his notions might have led him to exaggerate the importance of human societies, no one supported or honoured more man as an individual—a most useful and instructive example to this generation, which is always tempted to magnify man not as an individual, but as a mere bit of a social machine.

The end of my paper tells me that I have already been too long. Remember me to Mr. Hollond, and accept my thanks for the pleasure which you have given to me.