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And from Unitarianism to Christian Theism, the passage is largely open for such as cannot accept the evidence of the supernatural in the history of the church. There were many shades of belief in the liberal churches. If De Tocqueville's account of Unitarian preaching in Boston at the time of his visit is true, the Savoyard Vicar of Rousseau would have preached acceptably in some of our pulpits.
M. de Beaumont's notice of the life of Tocqueville, and Tocqueville's own later correspondence, appear to a thoughtful reader as accusations against Imperial despotism, as protests against the wrongs from which freedom is now suffering in France.
But in a country like England where business is in the air, where we can organise a vigilance committee on every abuse and an executive committee for every remedy as a matter of political instruction, which was De Tocqueville's point we need not care how much power is delegated to outlying bodies, and how much is kept for the central body.
The Quarterly Review informed its readers that "the supreme felicity of a true-born American is inaction of body and inanity of mind." De Tocqueville's Democracy in America was widely read in England and doubtless had its influence in revising opinion concerning America. Richard Cobden was, however, the first Englishman to interpret correctly the significance of America as an economic force.
The correspondence of a man about whom such words may be said without exaggeration has more than a merely literary interest. This book is one of which the literary critic is not the final judge. Tocqueville's letters, like every genuine series of letters written without thought of publication, have the charm and more than the simplicity of autobiography.
De Tocqueville's book, for which my thanks to you, dear grandmama, will preserve a very faithful picture of America of this day. "And it is refreshing, strengthening to the mind and clearing to the eye, to see Douglas and to hear him talk about all these things. He stands so clear, so pure of stock so to speak, amid all this variegated growth of political and social heresy.
M. De Tocqueville's observation, that the rights with which the clause in question invests the federal government "are not clearly appreciable or accurately defined," proceeds upon a mistaken view of the clause itself. It relates to the obligation of a contract, and forbids any act by which that obligation is impaired.
Sainte-Beuve makes a plea for desultory reading in instancing Tocqueville's lack of it, so that he failed to illustrate and animate his pages with its fruits, the result being, in the long run, great monotony. As a relief to the tired brain, without a complete loss of time, the reading at hazard, even browsing in a library, has its place in the equipment of a historian.
Nevertheless, the author is evidently a ripe and penetrating intelligence, who takes a comprehensive view of his subject, while at the same time possessing a power of acute and exhaustive analysis. September 6th. Tocqueville's book has on the whole a calming effect upon the mind, but it leaves a certain sense of disgust behind.
Tocqueville's services to France, to liberty, did not end with his life. The example, no less than the writings of such a man, bears fruit in later times. It belongs to no one land.
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