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TO SIR JAMES STEPHEN. - 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 SIR JAMES STEPHEN.

Sir,

Allow me to express the pleasure with which I have just read your “Lectures on the History of France.” I do not believe that I ever found in a foreign book such knowledge of the details of our history, or so clear a comprehension of our ideas, of our laws, and of our habits. I admire, too, the impartiality which raises you above national prejudices, and allows you to appreciate all that is good and great in another country, ardently attached as you evidently are to your own.

I will not say that I thoroughly admit all your facts or all your inferences. Let me observe that after having combated, forcibly and justly, what you call the Fatalist School, you lean towards its doctrines, when, towards the end of your work, you attach such decisive importance to race, and attribute the freedom of the English principally to their Teutonic blood. I could raise many objections to this, but I had rather dwell on the many opinions which I am happy enough to hold in common with you.

I passed six weeks last summer in England. If I had then at that time read your work I should have gone to Cambridge, pressed as I was for time, to seek your acquaintance. I trust that this opportunity may return. If you ever travel in France, pray keep in mind the pleasure which I should have in receiving you. Madame de Tocqueville is English, and would be charmed to meet so distinguished a countryman. My property, from which I write, is about fifteen miles from Cherbourg. I live here when I am not in Paris—that is for eight or nine months in every year. If a residence in a remote part of France, among a rural population little known to foreigners, can interest you, I repeat that we offer to you most cordially our hospitality.

I infer, from a kind notice of me in your third edition, that you have not seen my last work. I, therefore, send it to you.