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Subject Area: Political Theory

TO MRS. GROTE. - 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. GROTE.

Dear Mrs. Grote,

I have received your letter of the 5th, and ought to have answered it. I have not done so for many bad reasons, but among them is not indifference. One circumstance which has made me lately write but little to my friends is a state of physical suffering, which has communicated itself to the mind, and is difficult to shake off. I was at one time much alarmed. A month ago I had a little spitting of blood. Eight years ago a frightful illness began in the same way. I feared that I was to have another attack, and so, and even more, did my wife. She sent off in haste for my brother, who lives near Cherbourg, and for a physician. Nothing followed, but from that time I have not been the same man. I am not, even yet, recovered. I have mentioned this only to intimate friends, so keep it to yourself. To this physical uneasiness is to be added a feeling which also I tell only to intimate friends—my deep distaste for these Imperial pomps.

You see, my dear Mrs. Grote, that you need have no scruples in talking to me about yourself; for here are five pages at least about nothing except my own health, and feelings, and thoughts; but to whom could I write more freely than to you, who have always been so true a friend to me, and whose opinions coincide so exactly with my own?

I regret much that I cannot sit by Mr. Grote’s side, at the Institute.* I should have liked to see him there. I am happy in having been one of the first who pointed out to the public his admirable works. I then thought very highly of his book, but less highly than I do now after having carefully studied it.

[*]Mr. Grote had just been elected a correspondent.