The world, I think, is gradually coming over to an opinion, which, when I maintained it thirty years ago, was treated as a ridiculous paradox--that India is and always has been a great misfortune to us; and, that if it were possible to get quit of it, we should be richer and stronger.
But it is clear that we are to keep it, at least for my life.
Kindest regards from us all to you and Madame de Tocqueville.
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.