Kensington, August 20, 1856.
My dear Tocqueville,--A few weeks after my return to London your book
reached me--of course from the time that I got it, I employed all my
leisure in reading it.
Nothing, even of yours, has, I think, so much instructed and delighted
me. Much of it, perhaps, was not quite so new to me as to many others; as
I had had the privilege of hearing it from you--but even the views which
were familiar to me in their outline were made almost new by their
details.
It is painful to think how difficult it is to create a Constitutional
Government, and how difficult to preserve one, and, what is the same, how
easy to destroy one.
* * * * *
Mrs. Senior is going to Wales and to Ireland, where I join her, after
having paid a long-promised visit to Lord Aberdeen.
I like the conversation of retired statesmen, and he is one of our
wisest. Thiers has just left us. I spent two evenings with him, but on
the first he was engrossed by Lord Clarendon, and on the second by the
Duc d'Aumale and by Lord Palmerston. They were curious _rapprochements_,
at least the first and third. It was the first meeting of Palmerston and
Duc d'Aumale. I am very much pleased with the latter. He is sensible,
well informed, and unaffected.
Kindest regards, &c.