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TO THE SAME. - 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 SAME.

Tocqueville, August 28, 1857.

Though it is long since I heard from you, my dear friend, I suppose that you are still on the shores of your lake, and I write only to tell you some news of which you would be sorry to be ignorant.

Corcelle tells us that he, wife, and children, will be here about the 8th or 9th of September, and stay with us a fortnight. Luckily, the visit of these excellent friends coincides with that of the Loménies; and if yours could be added, for at least a part of the time, the pleasure of “Hôte” and “Hôtes” (for in French we are absurd enough to give the same appellation to the visitor and to the visited) would be complete.

I say this to inform you, not to press you. I know that when one has finished one’s arrangements, mapped out one’s route, and made one’s engagements, it is difficult to extemporise a change. So I shall forgive you, if you do not come. But you will allow me to be enchanted if you do come. This, however, you know to be at all times my feeling.

We have had splendid weather for three months, which I only half enjoy, fearing that it implies an autumnal deluge. Happily the weather, in spite of its reputation for inconstancy, does not rush, like man, inevitably, from extreme to extreme: a dry summer is sometimes followed by a dry winter.

We take in the Revue des Deux Mondes, and have read, therefore, and with the utmost pleasure, your last article on the history of Rome. It is wonderful that you can treat so long the same subject, and in the same form (which is unavoidable, since you trace the history of Rome only by its ruins), with unabated vigour, without fatiguing yourself or your reader, who derives always the same pleasure, instruction, interest, and amusement, from your pages. It is a literary tour de force, and requires all your peculiar strength and versatility. I am eager to see what you have to show us, and what, without describing it, you promise us. My wife and I are puzzling ourselves with guesses.