Tocqueville, March 8, 1857.
I still write to you, my dear Senior, from hence. We cannot tear
ourselves away from the charms of our retreat, or from a thousand little
employments. We shall scarcely reach Paris, therefore, before you. You
will, therefore, yourself bring me the remainder of your curious journal.
What I have already seen makes me most anxious to read the rest. I have
never read anything which gave me more valuable information on Egypt
and Oriental politics in general. As soon as I possibly can, I look
forward to continuing its perusal.
The papers tell us that your Ministry has been beaten on the Chinese War.
It seems to me to have been an ill-chosen battle-field. The war was,
perhaps, somewhat wantonly begun, and very roughly managed; but the
fault lay with distant and subordinate agents. Now that it has begun, no
Cabinet can avoid carrying it on vigorously. The existing Ministry will
do as well for this as any other. As there is no line of policy to be
changed, the upsetting is merely to put in the people who are now
out.
If the Ministry falls, the man least to be pitied will be our friend
Lewis. He will go out after having obtained a brilliant triumph on his
own ground, and he will enjoy the good fortune, rare to public men, of
quitting power greater than he was when he took it, and with the enviable
reputation of owing his greatness, not merely to his talents, but also to
the respect and the confidence which he has universally inspired.
All this delights me; for I feel towards him, and towards all his family,
a true friendship.
To return to China.
It seems to me that the relations between that country and Europe are
changed, and dangerously changed.
Till now, Europe has had to deal only with a Chinese government--the most
wretched of governments. Now you will find opposed to you a people; and a
people, however miserable and corrupt, is invincible on its own
territory, if it be supported and impelled by common and violent
passions.
Yet I should be sorry to die before I have seen China open to the eyes as
well as to the arms of Europe.
Do you believe in a dissolution? If so, when?
A thousand regards to Mrs. Grote, to the great historian, to the Reeves,
and generally to all who are kind enough to remember my existence.
I delight in the prospect of meeting you in Paris; yet I fear that you
will find it dull. All that I hear from the great town shows me that
never, at least during the last two hundred years, has intellectual life
been less active.
If there be talent in the official circles, it is not the talent of
conversation, and among those who formerly possessed that talent, there
is so much torpidity, such want of interest on public affairs, such
ignorance as to what is passing, and so little wish to hear about it,
that no one, I am told, knows what to talk about or to take interest in.
Your conversation, however, is so agreeable and stimulating that it is
capable of reanimating the dead. Come and try to work this miracle.
A thousand remembrances.