and fueled by an unbridled materialism. He saw America needlessly and dangerously expanding its territory, constantly running the risk of war with its neighbors on land and sea. He saw a decline in law and order and in political morals. America, he wrote in 1856, was such as now to “distress all the friends of democratic liberty and delight all of its opponents.”101
Nevertheless, the memories of Tocqueville’s visit to America never lost their power to move him. Writing to Gustave de Beaumont from Compiègne during the harsh winter of 1855, he reminisced as follows:
[F]or the last week I have not stopped from going, once a day, for a walk of an hour or more in the forest. These enormous trees, seen through the snow, remind me of the woods of Tennessee that we travelled through, almost 25 years ago, in weather still more severe.102 What was most different in the picture was myself.… This little retrospective review put me back in good humour and, to finish the job of cheering me up again, I thought how I had kept to this day the same friend with whom I had hunted the parrots of Memphis and
[print edition page 110]
that the passing of time had only strengthened the ties of trust and of friendship which then existed between us. This thought seemed to me more heartening to reflect upon than all the others.103
To imagine that Tocqueville might just as well have stayed at home is simply mistaken.
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