Tocqueville, August 21, 1858.
My dear Senior,--I hear indirectly that you are extremely ill. Your
letter told me only that you were suffering from neuralgia which you
hoped to be rid of in a few days, but Mrs. Grote informs me that the
malady continues and has even assumed a more serious character.
If you could write or dictate a few lines to me, you would please me
much.
I am inconsolable for the failure of your American journey. I expected
the most curious results from it I hoped that your journal would enable
me once more to understand the present state of a country which has
so changed since I saw it that I feel that I now know nothing of it. What
a blessing, however, that you had not started! What would have become of
you if the painful attack from which you are suffering had seized you
2,000 miles away from home, and in the midst of that agitated society
where no one has time to be ill or to think of those who are ill? It must
be owned that Fortune has favoured you by sending you this illness just
at the moment of your departure instead of ten days later.
I have been much interested by your visit to Sir John Boileau. You saw
there M. Guizot in one of his best lights. The energy with which he
stands up under the pressure of age and of ill-fortune, and is not only
resigned in his new situation, but as vigorous, as animated, and as
cheerful as ever, shows a character admirably tempered and a pride which
nothing will bend.
I do not so well understand the cheerfulness of Lord John Russell. For
the spectacle now exhibited by England, in which a party finds no
difficulty in maintaining itself in power by carrying into practice ideas
which it has always opposed, and by relying for support on its natural
enemies, is not of a nature to raise the reputation of your institutions,
or of your public men. I should have a great deal more to say to you on
this and other subjects if I were not afraid of tiring you. I leave off,
therefore, by assuring you that we are longing to hear of your recovery.
Remembrances, &c.