Tocqueville, August 6, 1857.
You may already have had news of me through some of our common friends,
my dear Senior, but I wish, besides, to give you some myself, and to
thank you again for the kind welcome I received from you and in your
house during my stay in London.
I regret only that I was unable to be more with you, and that, in spite
of myself, I was drawn into a whirlpool which carried me away and
prevented me from following my inclinations.
I have returned, however, full of gratitude for the marks of
consideration and affection showered upon me in England. I shall never
forget them.
I found my wife already installed here, and in good health; and I have
resumed my busy and peaceful life with a delight which does honour to my
wisdom. For I had been so spoiled in England that I might have been
afraid of finding my retreat too much out of the way and too quiet. But
nothing of the sort has happened. The excitement of the past month
appears to have added charms to the present.
Nevertheless, I have not yet set to work again, but I am full of good
resolutions, which I hope to execute as soon as I have completely
returned to my usual habits. These first days have been devoted to
putting everything into its regular order.
In France we are almost as much interested as you in England in the
affairs of India. Everyone, even in the country, asks me for news of what
is going on there.
There is a natural disposition to exaggerate the evil and to believe that
your dominion is overturned. For my part, I am waiting with the utmost
and most painful anxiety for the development of the drama, for no good
can possibly result from it; and there is not one civilised nation in the
world that ought to rejoice in seeing India escape from the hands of
Europeans in order to fall back into a state of anarchy and barbarism
worse than before its conquest.