Tocqueville, February 11, 1857.
I must ask you, my dear Senior, to tell me yourself how you have borne
this long winter. I suppose that it has been the same in England as in
Normandy, for the two climates are alike.
Here we have been buried for ten or twelve days under a foot of snow, and
it froze hard during the whole time. How has your larynx endured this
trial? I assure you that we take great interest in that larynx of yours.
Give us therefore some news of it.
Your letter gave us fresh pleasure by announcing your intention of
passing April and May in Paris. We shall certainly be there at the same
time, and perhaps before. I hope that we shall see you continually. We
are, you know, among the very many people who delight in your society;
besides, we have an excellent right to your friendship.
I am looking forward with great pleasure to your Egypt. What I already
know of that country leads me to think that of all your reminiscences it
will afford the most novelty and interest.
I do not think that your visit to Paris will be a very valuable addition
to your journals. If I may judge by the letters which I receive thence,
society there has never been flatter, nor more insipid, nor more entirely
without any dominant idea. I need not tell you that your opinion of our
statesmen is the same as that which prevails in Paris, but it is of such
an ancient date, and is so obvious, that it cannot give rise to
interesting discussions.
A-propos of statesmen, we cannot understand how a man who made, _inter
pocula_, the speech of ---- on his travels can remain in a government. I
think that even ours, though so long-suffering towards its agents, could
not tolerate anything similar even if it should secretly approve.
Absolute power has its limits. The Prince de Ligne, in a discourse which
you have doubtless read, seems to me to have described it in one word by
saying that it was the speech of a _gamin_.
I am, however, ungrateful to criticise it, for I own that it amused me
extremely, and that I thought that Morny especially was drawn from life;
but I think that if I had the honour of being Her Britannic Majesty's
Prime Minister, I should not have laughed so heartily. How could so
clever a man be guilty of such eccentricities?
In my last letter to our excellent friend Mrs. Grote, I ventured to say
that there was one person who wrote even worse than I did, and that it
was you. Your last letter has filled me with remorse, for I could
actually read it, and even without trouble. I beg, therefore, to make an
_amende honorable_, and envy you your power of advancing towards
perfection.
* * * * *
I still think of paying a little visit to England in June. Adieu, dear
Senior. Do not be angry with me for not writing on politics. Indeed I
could tell you nothing, for I know nothing, and besides, just now
politics are not to be treated by Frenchmen, _in letters_.