No More Learning

Having hastened on for some days at the quickest pace of his
horse, on a sudden he found himself entangled in a labyrinth of
rocks, from which he could discover no outlet. At length he
met an old peasant, who guided him by a path leading past a
waterfall; he offered him some coins for his guidance, but the
peasant would not take them.
"What use is it? " said Eckbert. "I could believe that this
man too, was none but Walther. " He looked round once more,
and it was none but Walther. Eckbert spurred his horse as fast
as it could gallop over meads and forests, till it sank exhausted
to the earth. Regardless of this, he hastened forward on foot.


## p. 14960 (#544) ##########################################

14960
JOHANN LUDWIG TIECK
In a dreamy mood he mounted a hill: he fancied he caught
the sound of a lively barking at a little distance; the birch-trees
whispered in the intervals, and in the strangest notes he heard
this song:
"Alone in the wood so gay,
Once more I stay;
None dare me slay,
The evil far away:
Ah, here I stay,
Alone in wood so gay. "
The sense, the consciousness, of Eckbert had departed; it
was a riddle which he could not solve, whether he was dream-
ing now, or had before dreamed of a wife and friend. The mar-
velous was mingled with the common; the world around him
seemed enchanted, and he himself was incapable of thought or
recollection.
A crooked, bent old woman crawled coughing up the hill
with a crutch. "Art thou bringing me my bird, my pearls, my
dog? " cried she to him. "See how injustice punishes itself!
No one but I was Walther, was Hugo. "
"God of heaven! " said Eckbert, muttering to himself: "in
what frightful solitude have I passed my life? "
"And Bertha was thy sister. "
Eckbert sank to the ground.
"Why did she leave me deceitfully? All would have been
fair and well: her time of trial was already finished. She was
the daughter of a knight, who had her nursed in a shepherd's
house; the daughter of thy father. "
"Why have I always had a forecast of this dreadful thought? "
cried Eckbert.
"Because in early youth thy father told thee: he could not
keep this daughter by him on account of his second wife, her
stepmother. "
Eckbert lay distracted and dying on the ground. Faint and
bewildered, he heard the old woman speaking, the dog barking,
and the bird repeating its song.
1


## p. 14961 (#545) ##########################################

14961
HENRY TIMROD
(1829-1867)
ENRY TIMROD was one of the pioneer American poets of the
South. Singing in an untoward day, hounded misfor-
tune, dying young, he yet breathed into his song the fer-
vid beauty of his land. His personal record makes a brief, pathetic
story. He was the son of William Henry Timrod, who was of
German extraction and a man of remarkable mental power, himself
something of a poet. Henry was born in Charleston, South Caro-
lina, on December 8th, 1829, and got his schooling in that city.
He
then entered the University of Georgia, but owing to his slender
purse was unable to finish his course; however, he read avidly and
grounded himself in good literature while in college. In those days
he was always inditing love verses to pretty girls, real or imagined.
Next, the dreamy, imaginative fellow tried to study law, only to find
it uncongenial,- the common lot of those called to literature. So
he supported himself until the war-time by private tutoring in the fam-
ily of a Carolina planter. When the Rebellion broke out, he became
war correspondent of the Charleston Mercury; but the horrors of
war acting on his sensitive nature made the task distasteful. His
appointment as assistant editor on the Columbia South-Carolinian
in 1864 gave a promise of more congenial work and brighter fortune.
He had married the woman of his choice, he was able to set up a
modest home, and children were born to him. But the respite of
home and happiness was all too short. He lost a darling child. Sher-
man's March to the Sea, with its devastation of the city, ruined his
business and left him a broken man. He lived thereafter From hand
to mouth, often in literal want of bread, getting temporary govern-
ment employment to tide over a crisis, and steadily lapsing into ill-
health. Finally, after the forewarning of several severe hemorrhages,
he died on the anniversary of the death of Poe, October 7th, 1867,
under forty years of age, -a melancholy life-struggle and seeming
life-failure. The biographies of Southern poets like Timrod and Lan-
ier make grim reading.
Timrod received so little encouragement in his literary work as
to sadden and embitter him. A small volume of his verse was pub-
lished in 1860, but with scanty recognition. Here and there a critic
saw merit in it, but it never came into general popularity. The
XXV-936


## p. 14962 (#546) ##########################################

14962
HENRY TIMROD
Northern magazines would not take his contributions. he was out of
the current of literary activity. He was regarded with some local
pride, and at one time a movement was set on foot to publish and
present him with a handsome illustrated edition of his poems for
circulation in England; but to his great disappointment the project
fell through, not unnaturally, since the national situation drew
men's minds from thoughts of literature. The definite edition of the
poems is posthumous,- that issued in 1873, with a memoir by his
dear friend and fellow-poet, Paul Hamilton Hayne. A perusal of this
book reveals the fine quality of Timrod's work. Done under every
disadvantage, incomplete and inadequate as it seems in comparison
with what, under favoring conditions, he might have achieved, it is
nevertheless very true, sweet, and heartfelt singing. Timrod had a
deep, reverent love of nature, and was a disciple of Wordsworth with-
out imitating that high priest of nature-worship. Spring,' perhaps
his finest short lyric, reflects this influence and predilection. He was
also a broad-minded patriot, who, while in a chant like his 'Caro-
lina' he could voice sectional feeling, could in that noble piece
'The Cotton Boll,' and in other lyrics, look prophetically into the
future, and hail the dawn of a beneficent peace, a wonderful national
prosperity. Timrod's style has nothing of the erratic about it: his
diction is simple, chaste, felicitous; his images and similes unforced
and pleasing. If he is to be called a poet of promise rather than
performance, it is only in view of the poor opportunity he had, and
in the conviction that had fortune been more kindly, he would have
richly repaid her in what he gave the world.
-
SPRING
SPRIN
PRING, with that nameless pathos in the air
Which dwells with all things fair,
Spring, with her golden suns and silver rain,
Is with us once again.
Out in the lonely woods the jasmine burns
Its fragrant lamps, and turns
Into a royal court with green festoons
The banks of dark lagoons.
In the deep heart of every forest tree
The blood is all aglee,
And there's a look about the leafless bowers
As if they dreamed of flowers.


## p. 14963 (#547) ##########################################

HENRY TIMROD
14963
Yet still on every side we trace the hand
Of Winter in the land,
Save where the maple reddens on the lawn,
Flushed by the season's dawn.
Or where, like those strange semblances we find
That age to childhood bind,
The elm puts on, as if in Nature's scorn,
The brown of Autumn corn.
As yet the turf is dark, although you know
That not a span below,
A thousand germs are groping through the gloom,
And soon will burst their tomb.
Already, here and there, on frailest stems
Appear some azure gems,
Small as might deck, upon a gala day,
The forehead of a fay.
In gardens you may note amid the dearth
The crocus breaking earth;
And near the snowdrop's tender white and green,
The violet in its screen.
But many gleams and shadows need must pass
Along the budding grass,
And weeks go by, before the enamored South
Shall kiss the rose's mouth.
Still there's a sense of blossoms yet unborn
In the sweet airs of morn;
One almost looks to see the very street
Grow purple at his feet.
At times a fragrant breeze comes floating by,
And brings, you know not why,
A feeling as when eager crowds await
Before a palace gate
Some wondrous pageant; and you scarce would start,
If from a beech's heart,
A blue-eyed Dryad, stepping forth, should say,
"Behold me! I am May! "
Ah! who would couple thoughts of war and crime
With such a blessed time!


## p. 14964 (#548) ##########################################

14964
HENRY TIMROD
Who in the west wind's aromatic breath
Could hear the call of Death!
Yet not more surely shall the Spring awake
The voice of wood and brake,
Than she shall rouse, for all her tranquil charms,
A million men to arms.
There shall be deeper hues upon her plains
Than all her sunlit rains,
And every gladdening influence around,
Can summon from the ground.
Oh! standing on this desecrated mold,
Methinks that I behold,
Lifting her bloody daisies up to God,
Spring kneeling on the sod,
And calling, with the voice of all her rills,
Upon the ancient hills
To fall and crush the tyrants and the slaves
Who turn her meads to graves.
SONNET
M
OST men know love but as a part of life:
They hide it in some corner of the breast,
Even from themselves; and only when
In the brief pauses of that daily strife,-
Wherewith the world might else be not so rife,-
They draw it forth (as one draws forth a toy
To soothe some ardent, kiss-exacting boy),
And hold it up to sister, child, or wife.
Ah me! why may not love and life be one?
Why walk we thus alone, when by our side,
Love, like a visible God, might be our guide?
How would the marts grow noble! and the street,
Worn like a dungeon floor by weary feet,
Seem then a golden court-way of the Sun!
ey rest


## p. 14965 (#549) ##########################################

14965
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
(1805-1859)
o ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE belongs the honor of the discovery
of political America,-a discovery all the more significant
because the logical result of a close observation of national
affairs in Europe, and of the main current directing them. Tocque-
ville was the first European politician of the nineteenth century to
comprehend fully that the trend of modern civilization is in the
direction of democracy; that democratic ideals, whether acceptable
or not, must be taken into account, for a complete understanding of
certain phenomena of European history not
only in the last century, but in the last
eight centuries. He was also the first to
appreciate that the forces of democracy
should be turned to the best advantage
whatever the form of government; and the
first to look to America as the one country
where democracy, having had a logical and
Consistent growth, could be studied with the
greatest edification.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
To understand Tocqueville's intense in-
terest in democratic institutions, it is neces-
sary to consider his immediate ancestry,
and the environment in which he was
reared. His father was of the old and
honorable family the Clérels, proprietors of Tocqueville on the coast
of Normandy,- a family linked more prominently with the magis-
tracy than with the nobility. His mother was the granddaughter
of Malesherbes, the learned magistrate who undertook the defense of
Louis XVI. before the Convention, and for his loyalty was subse-
quently put to death, together with many of his family. Madame de
Tocqueville and her husband were imprisoned, but escaped the guillo-
tine by the opportune death of Robespierre. On the Restoration in
1815, the elder Tocqueville, father of Alexis, reassumed the title of
count. His famous son was born at Verneuil, Department of Seine-
et-Oise, July 29th, 1805, and was educated at the College of Metz;
passing from there to Paris, where, after a course of legal studies,
he was called to the bar in 1825. Louis XVIII. had died in 1824,
and the inadequate Charles X. occupied the French throne.



## p. 14966 (#550) ##########################################

14966
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
After a tour in Italy and Sicily, where with characteristic interest
he observed chiefly the political and social condition of the inhabit-
ants, Tocqueville returned to France, entering upon magisterial duties
as juge auditeur at Versailles. His wonderful sensitiveness to the cur-
rents of political life made him aware of the revolutionary forces
continually at work under the surface of the monarchical government,
and drew him to the consideration of the causes of these disturb-
ances. In 1830 the Revolution of July brought Louis Philippe to the
throne. From the July government Tocqueville and his colleague,
Gustave de Beaumont, accepted a commission to inquire into the
working of the penitentiary system in America.
ance.
This visit to the United States was to be of momentous import-
To Tocqueville, alive to the full import of the political phe-
nomena of his own generation, and of that preceding, it was nothing
less than a pilgrimage to the temple of the strange new god
Democracy. The abnormal manifestations of this spirit had spurred
him on to a study of its normal development. He returned to pub-
lish in 1833 a treatise on the penitentiary system in the United
States, and in 1835 his great work, Democracy in America. '
book is one of the most noteworthy of all books on political subjects,
not only because it was the first European consideration and expo-
sition of the principles of the United States government, but because
the
it was the first comprehensive treatment of democracy itself, of
spirit underlying the letter. "Democracy is the picture, America the
frame," Tocqueville wrote of the book. In the Introduction he
says:
The
"It is not then merely to satisfy a legitimate curiosity that I have exam-
ined America: my wish has been to find there instruction by which we may
ourselves profit. Whoever should imagine that I have intended to write a
panegyric would be strangely mistaken. . . Nor has it been my object
to advocate any form of government in particular; for I am of opinion that
absolute excellence is rarely to be found in any system of laws. I have not
even pretended to judge whether the social revolution, which I believe to be
irresistible, is advantageous or prejudicial to mankind. I have acknowledged
this revolution as a fact already accomplished or on the eve of its accomplish-
ment; and I have selected that nation from amongst those which have under-
gone it, in which its development has been the most peaceful and the most
complete, in order to discern its natural consequences, and to find out if possi-
ble the means of rendering it profitable to mankind. I confess that in America
I saw more than America: I sought there the image of democracy itself, with
its inclinations, its character, its prejudices, and its passions, in order to learn
what we have to fear or to hope from its progress. "
It is this detachment from his subject that gives to Tocqueville's
work much of its value. He has the disinterestedness of the ideal


## p. 14967 (#551) ##########################################

ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
14967
statesman, who notes the pulse of the times with extreme care only
that he and others may know how to deal wisely with the body pol-
itic. Personally, Tocqueville might be an absolute monarchist for
aught that the book betrays of his preferences. He merges himself
in his curiosity concerning this powerful spirit of the age.
Aside from its value as a dispassionate inquiry into the merits of
democracy, Democracy in America' is remarkable as a sharply
drawn picture of political and social institutions in the United States,
excluding nothing that could be a source of enlightenment. The
first volume is taken up mainly with a consideration of government
and organization, of American townships, of the State, of judicial
power, of political jurisdiction, of the Federal Constitution, of political
parties, of the liberty of the press, and of the government of the
democracy; then follow some highly significant chapters on the
advantages and disadvantages accruing from democratic government.
These show a political subtlety which at times reaches the degree of
prophecy. Especially is this true in the discussion of parties in the
United States; in the recognition of the tyranny which may lurk in
the power of the majority, and from which Tocqueville believes the
greatest dangers to the State are to be feared. The second volume
is concerned with the influence of democracy upon the intellect of
the United States; upon the feelings of the Americans; upon man-
ners; upon political society. Reading the entire work in the light of
over fifty years of national development, this generation can realize,
as Tocqueville's contemporaries could not, how deeply he had pene-
trated to the essence of America's democracy, how few of his obser-
vations concerned what was merely superficial or transitory.
Yet this exhaustive study of democracy in the United States
was by no means intended as a preliminary to the advocacy of its
institutions for European governments, but to demonstrate that
the democratic spirit may be linked with social and religious order.
Tocqueville perceived that in France this spirit was well-nigh syn-
onymous with anarchy; finding its home among the illiterate and
the disordered, and so inducing in the minds of the conservative and
law-abiding the belief that it could be productive of nothing but evil.
This belief he wished to dispel. In concluding his great work he
writes:
-
"For myself, who now look back from this extreme limit of my task and
discover from afar, but at once, the various objects which have attracted
my more attentive investigation upon my way, I am full of apprehensions
and hopes. I perceive mighty dangers which may be avoided or alleviated;
and I cling with a firmer hold to the belief that for democratic nations to be
virtuous and prosperous, they require but to will it. . . The nations of
our time cannot prevent the conditions of men from becoming equal; but it
•


## p. 14968 (#552) ##########################################

14968
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
depends upon themselves whether the principle of equality is to lead them to
servitude or freedom, to knowledge or barbarism, to prosperity or wretched-
ness. »
'Democracy in America' at once achieved a signal success: it
was read throughout Europe, being translated into nearly all Euro-
pean languages. In 1836 Tocqueville received the Montyon prize of
several thousand francs, which is bestowed each year by the French
Institute upon the work of the greatest moral utility produced dur-
ing the year. In 1837 he was made a member of the Academy of
Moral and Political Sciences, and in 1841 of the French Academy.
About this time he visited England, receiving there an enthusiastic
reception from the Liberal party. In England he married a Miss
Motley. Upon his return to France, he became, by a family arrange-
ment, possessor of the estate of Tocqueville.
In 1837 he was a candidate for the representation of Valoques
in the Chamber of Deputies, but was defeated. His political career
began in 1839; when, his character and principles being better known
and appreciated, he was elected by the same district, with a large
majority. As a practical politician, Tocqueville was not entirely suc-
cessful, although his influence in the legislature was always pene-
trative and lasting. He was of too exalted a character, of too lofty
an idealism, to ride triumphantly upon the surface current of events.
He was lacking in diplomacy and in calculation. His opposition to
Guizot and to Louis Napoleon was founded strictly upon principle.
Predicting the Revolution of 1848, he conformed to the new condition
of affairs only so long as Louis Napoleon represented a moderate
and reasonable Republicanism. In 1849 he was vice-president of the
Assembly, and Minister of Foreign Affairs from June to October of
the same year. The Coup d'État of 1851, by which Louis Napoleon
became Napoleon III. , forced Tocqueville into private life, from which
he did not again emerge.
In 1856 he published the first part of 'L'Ancien Régime et la
Révolution,' a work which he was not destined to complete. His
health, which had been impaired since his visit to America, began to
fail. In 1858 he was obliged to seek the south of France for the
relief of a pulmonary trouble. He died on the 16th of April, 1859.
His 'Memoirs and Correspondence' were published in the following
year.
In 1896 appeared an English translation of his 'Recollections'
- of the period between the Revolution of 1848 and the 30th of
October, 1849. These 'Recollections' have a great personal as well
as political interest; throwing light as they do upon a character of
unusual charm and beauty, in whom devotion to an ideal was blended
with a certain rare acquiescence in the march of events,- a patience
only possible to the seer. While the absolute element of unqualified
-


## p. 14969 (#553) ##########################################

ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
14969
admiration must be present always in estimates of Tocqueville, ap-
preciation of his life and work increases with the increasing years,
since that life and work were intimate with the future, rather than
with his own time and place.
EDUCATION OF YOUNG WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES
From Democracy in America,' by permission of the Century Company,
publishers
N°
FREE communities ever existed without morals; and as I
observed in the former part of this work, morals are the
work of woman. Consequently, whatever affects the con-
dition of women, their habits and their opinions, has great politi-
cal importance in my eyes.
Amongst almost all Protestant nations, young women are far
more the mistresses of their own actions than they are in Catho-
lic countries. This independence is still greater in Protestant
countries like England, which have retained or acquired the right
of self-government: freedom is then infused into the domestic
circle by political habits and religious opinions. In the United
States, the doctrines of Protestantism are combined with great
political liberty and a most democratic state of society; and no-
where are young women surrendered so early or so completely
to their own guidance.
Long before an American girl arrives at the marriageable
age, her emancipation from paternal control begins: she has
scarcely ceased to be a child when she already thinks for herself,
speaks with freedom, and acts on her own impulse.
The great
scene of the world is constantly open to her view: far from seek-
ing to conceal it from her, it is every day disclosed more com-
pletely; and she is taught to survey it with a firm and calm
gaze. Thus the vices and dangers of society are early revealed
to her; as she sees them clearly, she views them without illus-
ion, and braves them without fear; for she is full of reliance on
her own strength, and her confidence seems to be shared by all
around her.
An American girl scarcely ever displays that virginal softness
in the midst of young desires, or that innocent and ingenuous
grace, which usually attend the European woman in the transition


## p. 14970 (#554) ##########################################

14970
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
from girlhood to youth. It is rare that an American woman, at
any age, displays childish timidity or ignorance. Like the young
women of Europe, she seeks to please, but she knows precisely
the cost of pleasing. If she does not abandon herself to evil, at
least she knows that it exists; and she is remarkable rather for
purity of manners than for chastity of mind.
I have been frequently surprised, and almost frightened, at
the singular address and happy boldness with which young
women in America contrive to manage their thoughts and their
language, amidst all the difficulties of free conversation: a phi-
losopher would have stumbled at every step along the narrow
path which they trod without accident and without effort. It is
easy indeed to perceive that even amidst the independence of
early youth, an American woman is always mistress of herself:
she indulges in all permitted pleasures without yielding herself
up to any of them; and her reason never allows the reins of
self-guidance to drop, though it often seems to hold them loosely.
In France, where traditions of every age are still so strangely
mingled in the opinions and tastes of the people, women com-
monly receive a reserved, retired, and almost conventual educa-
tion, as they did in aristocratic times; and then they are suddenly
abandoned, without a guide and without assistance, in the midst.
of all the irregularities inseparable from democratic society.
The Americans are more consistent. They have found out
that in a democracy the independence of individuals cannot fail
to be very great, youth premature, tastes ill restrained, customs
fleeting, public opinion often unsettled and powerless, paternal
authority weak, and marital authority contested. Under these
circumstances, believing that they had little chance of repress-
ing in woman the most vehement passions of the human heart,
they held that the surer way was to teach her the art of com-
bating those passions for herself. As they could not prevent her
virtue from being exposed to frequent danger, they determined
that she should know how best to defend it; and more reliance
was placed on the free vigor of her will than on safeguards
which have been shaken or overthrown. Instead, then, of incul-
cating mistrust of herself, they constantly seek to enhance her
confidence in her own strength of character. As it is neither
possible nor desirable to keep a young woman in perpetual and
complete ignorance, they hasten to give her a precocious knowl-
edge on all subjects. Far from hiding the corruptions of the


## p. 14971 (#555) ##########################################

ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
14971
world from her, they prefer that she should see them at once,
and train herself to shun them; and they hold it of more import-
ance to protect her conduct than to be over-scrupulous of the
innocence of her thoughts.
Although the Americans are a very religious people, they do
not rely on religion alone to defend the virtue of woman: they
seek to arm her reason also. In this respect they have followed
the same method as in several others: they first make vigorous
efforts to cause individual independence to control itself, and they
do not call in the aid of religion until they have reached the
utmost limits of human strength.
I am aware that an education of this kind is not without
danger; I am sensible that it tends to invigorate the judgment
at the expense of the imagination, and to make cold and virtuous
women instead of affectionate wives and agreeable companions
to man. Society may be more tranquil and better regulated, but
domestic life has often fewer charms. These however are sec-
ondary evils, which may be braved for the sake of higher inter-
ests. At the stage at which we are now arrived, the choice is
no longer left to us: a democratic education is indispensable to
protect women from the dangers with which democratic institu-
tions and manners surround them.
POLITICAL ASSOCIATION
From Democracy in America, by permission of the Century Company,
publishers
IT
T MUST be acknowledged that the unrestrained liberty of polit-
ical association has not hitherto produced, in the United
States, the fatal results which might perhaps be expected
from it elsewhere.
The right of association was imported from
England, and it has always existed in America; the exercise of
this privilege is now incorporated with the manners and customs
of the people. At the present time, the liberty of association
has become a necessary guaranty against the tyranny of the
majority. In the United States, as soon as a party has become
dominant, all public authority passes into its hands; its private
supporters occupy all the offices, and have all the force of the


## p. 14972 (#556) ##########################################

14972
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
administration at their disposal. As the most distinguished mem-
bers of the opposite party cannot surmount the barrier which
excludes them from power, they must establish themselves out-
side of it; and oppose the whole moral authority of the minority
to the physical power which domineers over it. Thus a dangerous
expedient is used to obviate a still more formidable danger.
The omnipotence of the majority appears to me to be so full
of peril to the American republics, that the dangerous means
used to bridle it seem to be more advantageous than prejudicial.
And here I will express an opinion which may remind the
reader of what I said when speaking of the freedom of town-
ships. There are no countries in which associations are more
needed to prevent the despotism of faction or the arbitrary power
of a prince, than those which are democratically constituted.
In aristocratic nations, the body of the nobles and the wealthy
are in themselves natural associations, which check the abuses
of power. In countries where such associations do not exist, if
private individuals cannot create an artificial and temporary
substitute for them, I can see no permanent protection against
the most galling tyranny; and a great people may be oppressed
with impunity by a small faction, or by a single individual.
The meeting of a great political convention (for there are
conventions of all kinds), which may frequently become a neces-
sary measure, is always a serious occurrence, even in America,
and one which judicious patriots cannot regard without alarm.
This was very perceptible in the convention of 1831, at which all
the most distinguished members strove to moderate its language,
and to restrain its objects within certain limits. It is probable
that this convention exercised a great influence on the minds of
the malcontents, and prepared them for the open revolt against
the commercial laws of the Union which took place in 1832.
It cannot be denied that the unrestrained liberty of associa-
tion for political purposes is the privilege which a people is
longest in learning how to exercise. If it does not throw the
nation into anarchy, it perpetually augments the chances of that
calamity. On one point, however, this perilous liberty offers a
security against dangers of another kind: in countries where asso-
ciations are free, secret associations are unknown. In America
there are factions, but no conspiracies.


## p. 14973 (#557) ##########################################

ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
14973
CAUSE OF LEGISLATIVE INSTABILITY IN AMERICA
From Democracy in America, by permission of the Century Company,
publishers
I
HAVE already spoken of the natural defects of democratic insti-
tutions: each one of them increases in the same ratio as the
power of the majority. To begin with the most evident
of them all, the mutability of the laws is an evil inherent in a
democratic government, because it is natural to democracies to
raise new men to power. But this evil is more or less sensible
in proportion to the authority and the means of action which the
legislature possesses.
In America, the authority exercised by the legislatures is
supreme; nothing prevents them from accomplishing their wishes
with celerity and with irresistible power, and they are supplied
with new representatives every year. That is to say, the circum-
stances which contribute most powerfully to democratic instability,
and which admit of the free application of caprice to the most
important objects, are here in full operation. Hence America
is, at the present day, the country of all where laws last the
shortest time. Almost all the American constitutions have been
amended within thirty years: there is therefore not one Ameri-
can State which has not modified the principles of its legislation
in that time. As for the laws themselves, a single glance at the
archives of the different States of the Union suffices to convince
one that in America the activity of the legislator never slackens.
Not that the American democracy is naturally less stable than
any other; but it is allowed to follow, in the formation of the
laws, the natural instability of its desires.
The omnipotence of the majority, and the rapid as well as
absolute manner in which its decisions are executed in the United
States, not only render the law unstable, but exercise the same
influence upon the execution of the law and the conduct of the
administration. As the majority is the only power which it is
important to court, all its projects are taken up with the greatest
ardor; but no sooner is its attention distracted than all its ardor
ceases: whilst in the free States of Europe, where the adminis-
tration is at once independent and secure, the projects of the
legislature continue to be executed, even when its attention is
directed to other objects.


## p. 14974 (#558) ##########################################

14974
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY
From Democracy in America,' by permission of the Century Company
publishers
I
HOLD it to be an impious and detestable maxim, that politically
speaking the people have a right to do anything; and yet I
have asserted that all authority originates in the will of the
majority. Am I then in contradiction with myself?
A general law, which bears the name of justice, has been
made and sanctioned, not only by a majority of this or that peo-
ple, but by a majority of mankind. The rights of every people
are therefore confined within the limits of what is just. A nation
may be considered as a jury which is empowered to represent
society at large, and to apply justice, which is its law. Ought
such a jury, which represents society, to have more power than
the society itself whose laws it executes ?
When I refuse to obey an unjust law, I do not contest the
right of the majority to command, but I simply appeal from the
sovereignty of the people to the sovereignty of mankind. Some
have not feared to assert that a people can never outstep the
boundaries of justice and reason in those affairs which are pecul-
iarly its own; and that consequently, full power may be given to
the majority by which they are represented. But this is the lan-
guage of a slave.
A majority taken collectively is only an individual, whose
opinions, and frequently whose interests, are opposed to those of
another individual, who is styled a minority. If it be admitted
that a man possessing absolute power may misuse that power
by wronging his adversaries, why should not a majority be liable
to the same reproach? Men do not change their characters by
uniting with each other; nor does their patience in the presence
of obstacles increase with their strength. For my own part I
cannot believe it: the power to do everything, which I should
refuse to one of my equals, I will never grant to any number of
them.
I do not think that for the sake of preserving liberty, it is
possible to combine several principles in the same government so
as really to oppose them to one another. The form of govern-
ment which is usually termed mixed has always appeared to me
a mere chimera. Accurately speaking, there is no such thing as
a mixed government, in the same sense usually given to that


## p. 14975 (#559) ##########################################

ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
14975
word; because in all communities some one principle of action
may be discovered which preponderates over the others. Eng-
land in the last century—which has been especially cited as an
example of this sort of government-was essentially an aristo-
cratic State, although it comprised some great elements of de-
mocracy; for the laws and customs of the country were such that
the aristocracy could not but preponderate in the long run, and
direct public affairs according to its own will. The error arose
from seeing the interests of the nobles perpetually contending
with those of the people, without considering the issue of the
contest, which was really the important point. When a com-
munity actually has a mixed government,- that is to say, when
it is equally divided between adverse principles,—it must either
experience a revolution or fall into anarchy.
I am therefore of opinion that social power superior to all
others must always be placed somewhere; but I think that liberty
is endangered when this power finds no obstacle which can retard
its course, and give it time to moderate its own vehemence.
Unlimited power is in itself a bad and dangerous thing.
Human beings are not competent to exercise it with discretion.
God alone can be omnipotent, because his wisdom and his justice.
are always equal to his power. There is no power on earth so
worthy of honor in itself, or clothed with rights so sacred, that
I would admit its uncontrolled and all-predominant authority.
When I see that the right and the means of absolute command
are conferred on any power whatever, be it called a people or a
king, an aristocracy or a democracy, a monarchy or a republic, I
say there is a germ of tyranny; and I seek to live elsewhere,
under other laws.
In my opinion, the main evil of the present democratic insti-
tutions of the United States does not arise, as is often asserted
in Europe, from their weakness, but from their irresistible
strength. I am not so much alarmed at the excessive liberty
which reigns in that country, as at the inadequate securities.
which one finds there against tyranny.
When an individual or a party is wronged in the United
States, to whom can he apply for redress? If to public opinion,
public opinion constitutes the majority; if to the legislature, it
represents the majority, and implicitly obeys it; if to the execu
tive power, it is appointed by the majority, and serves as a pass-
ive tool in its hands. The public force consists of the majority


## p. 14976 (#560) ##########################################

14976
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
•
under arms; the jury is the majority invested with the right of
hearing judicial cases; and in certain States, even the judges are
elected by the majority. However iniquitous or absurd the meas-
ure of which you complain, you must submit to it as well as you
can.
If, on the other hand, a legislative power could be so consti-
tuted as to represent the majority without necessarily being the
slave of its passions, an executive so as to retain a proper share
of authority, and a judiciary so as to remain independent of the
other two powers, a government would be formed which would
still be democratic, while incurring hardly any risk of tyranny.
I do not say that there is a frequent use of tyranny in Amer-
ica at the present day; but I maintain that there is no sure
barrier against it, and that the causes which mitigate the govern-
ment there are to be found in the circumstances and the man-
ners of the country, more than in its laws.
POWER EXERCISED BY THE MAJORITY IN AMERICA UPON
OPINION
From Democracy in America, by permission of the Century Company,
publishers
T IS in the examination of the exercise of thought in the United
States, that we clearly perceive how far the power of the ma-
jority surpasses all the powers with which we are acquainted
in Europe. Thought is an invisible and subtle power that mocks
all the efforts of tyranny. At the present time, the most abso-
lute monarchs in Europe cannot prevent certain opinions hostile
to their authority from circulating in secret through their domin-
ions, and even in their courts. It is not so in America: as long
as the majority is still undecided, discussion is carried on; but
as soon as its decision is irrevocably pronounced, every one is
silent, and the opponents as well as the friends of the measure
unite in assenting to its propriety. The reason of this is per-
fectly clear: no monarch is so absolute as to combine all the
powers of society in his own hands, and to conquer all opposi-
tion, as a majority is able to do, which has the right both
of making and of executing the laws.
The authority of a king is physical, and controls the actions
of men without subduing their will. But the majority possesses
_______________


## p. 14977 (#561) ##########################################

ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
14977
a power which is physical and moral at the same time, which
acts upon the will as much as upon the actions, and represses
not only all contest but all controversy.
I know of no country in which there is so little independence
of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.
In any
constitutional State in Europe, every sort of religious and politi-
cal theory may be freely preached and disseminated; for there
is no country in Europe so subdued by any single authority
as not to protect the man who raises his voice in the cause of
truth from the consequences of his hardihood. If he is unfor-
tunate enough to live under an absolute government, the people
are often upon his side; if he inhabits a free country, he can if
necessary find a shelter behind the throne. The aristocratic part
of society supports him in some countries, and the democracy
in others. But in a nation where democratic institutions exist,
organized like those of the United States, there is but one author-
ity, one element of strength and success, with nothing behind it.
In America the majority raises formidable barriers around the
liberty of opinion: within these barriers, an author may write
what he pleases; but woe to him if he goes beyond them. Not
that he is in danger of an auto-da-fé, but he is exposed to con-
tinued obloquy and persecution. His political career is closed
forever, since he has offended the only authority which is able
to open it. Every sort of compensation, even that of celebrity,
is refused to him. Before publishing his opinions, he imagined
that he held them in common with others; but no sooner has he
declared them than he is loudly censured by his opponents, whilst
those who think like him, without having the courage to speak
out, abandon him in silence. He yields at length, overcome by
the daily effort which he has to make; and subsides into silence,
as if he felt remorse for having spoken the truth.
Fetters and headsmen were the coarse instruments which
tyranny formerly employed; but the civilization of our age has
perfected despotism itself, though it seemed to have nothing to
learn. Monarchs had, so to speak, materialized oppression: the
democratic republics of the present day have rendered it as
entirely an affair of the mind, as the will which it is intended.
to coerce. Under the absolute sway of one man, the body was
attacked in order to subdue the soul; but the soul escaped the
blows which were directed against it, and rose proudly superior.
XXV-937


## p. 14978 (#562) ##########################################

14978
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
Such is not the course adopted by tyranny in democratic repub-
lics; there the body is left free and the soul is enslaved. The
master no longer says, "You shall think as I do, or you shall
die"; but he says, "You are free to think differently from me,
and to retain your life, your property, and all that you possess;
but you are henceforth a stranger among your people. You may
retain your civil rights, but they will be useless to you, for you
will never be chosen by your fellow-citizens if you solicit their
votes; and they will affect to scorn you if you ask for their
esteem. You will remain among men, but you will be deprived
of the rights of mankind. Your fellow-creatures will shun you
like an impure being; and even those who believe in your inno-
cence will abandon you, lest they should be shunned in their
turn. Go in peace! I have given you your life, but it is an exist-
ence worse than death. "
DANGERS FROM OMNIPOTENCE OF THE MAJORITY
From Democracy in America,' by permission of the Century Company,
publishers
G
OVERNMENTS usually perish from impotence or from tyranny.
In the former case their power escapes from them; it is
wrested from their grasp in the latter. Many observ-
ers who have witnessed the anarchy of democratic States have
imagined that the government of those States was naturally weak
and impotent: the truth is that when war is once begun between
parties, the government loses its control over society. But I do
not think that a democratic power is naturally without force or
resources; say rather that it is almost always by the abuse of its
force, and the misemployment of its resources, that it becomes a
failure. Anarchy is almost always produced by its tyranny or
its mistakes, but not by its want of strength.
It is important not to confound stability with force, or the
greatness of a thing with its duration. In democratic republics,
the power which directs society is not stable, for it often changes
hands and assumes a new direction; but whichever way it turns,
its force is almost irresistible. The governments of the Ameri-
can republics appear to me to be as much centralized as those
of the absolute monarchies of Europe, and more energetic than


## p. 14979 (#563) ##########################################

ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
14979
they are. I do not therefore imagine that they will perish from
weakness.
If ever the free institutions of America are destroyed, that
event may be attributed to the omnipotence of the majority;
which may at some future time urge the minorities to despera-
tion, and oblige them to have recourse to physical force. Anarchy
will then be the result, but it will have been brought about by
despotism.
FRANCE UNDER THE RULE OF THE MIDDLE CLASS
From the 'Recollections of Alexis de Tocqueville. ' The Macmillan Company,
publishers
OUR
UR history from 1789 to 1830, if viewed from a distance and
as a whole, affords as it were the picture of a struggle to
the death between the Ancien Régime - its traditions,
memories, hopes, and men, as represented by the aristocracy —
and New France under the leadership of the middle class. The
year 1830 closed the first period of our revolutions; or rather of
our revolution, for there is but one, which has remained always
the same in the face of varying fortunes,—of which our fathers
witnessed the commencement, and of which we, in all probability,
shall not live to behold the end. In 1830 the triumph of the
middle class had been definite; and so thorough that all political
power, every franchise, every prerogative, and the whole govern-
ment, was confined, and as it were heaped up, within the narrow
limits of this one class, to the statutory exclusion of all beneath
them, and the actual exclusion of all above. Not only did it
thus alone rule society, but it may be said to have formed it.
It ensconced itself in every vacant place, prodigiously augmented
the number of places, and accustomed itself to live almost as
much upon the treasury as upon its own industry.
No sooner had the Revolution of 1830 become an accom-
plished fact, than there ensued a great lull in political passion, a
sort of general subsidence, accompanied by a rapid increase in
the public wealth. The particular spirit of the middle class
became the general spirit of the government; it ruled the latter's
foreign policy as well as affairs at home: an active, industrious.
spirit, often dishonorable, generally sober, occasionally reckless
through vanity or egotism, but timid by temperament, moderate


## p. 14980 (#564) ##########################################

14980
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
in all things except in its love of ease and comfort, and wholly
undistinguished. It was a spirit, which, mingled with that of the
people or of the aristocracy, can do wonders; but which by itself
will never produce more than a government shorn of both virtue
and greatness. Master of everything in a manner that no aris-
tocracy had ever been or may ever hope to be, the middle class,
when called upon to assume the government, took it up as a
trade; it intrenched itself behind its power: and before long, in
their egoism, each of its members thought much more of his pri
vate business than of public affairs, and of his personal enjoy-
ment than of the greatness of the nation.
Posterity, which sees none but the more dazzling crimes, and
which loses sight in general of mere vices, will never perhaps
know to what extent the government of that day, towards its
close, assumed the ways of a trading company, which conducts
all its transactions with a view to the profits accruing to the
shareholders. These vices were due to the natural instincts of
the dominant class, to the absoluteness of its power, and also to
the character of the time. Possibly also King Louis Philippe had
contributed to their growth.
This prince was a singular medley of qualities, and one must
have known him longer and more nearly than I did to be able
to portray him in detail.
Nevertheless, although I was never one of his Council, I have
frequently had occasion to come into contact with him. The last
time that I spoke to him was shortly before the catastrophe of
February [1848]. I was then director of the Académie Française,
and I had to bring to the King's notice some matter or other
which concerned that body. After treating the question which
had brought me, I was about to retire, when the King detained
me, took a chair, motioned me to another, and said affably:—
"Since you are here, Monsieur de Tocqueville, let us talk: I
want to hear you talk a little about America. "
I knew him well enough to know that this meant, "I shall
talk about America myself. " And he did actually talk of it at
great length and very searchingly: it was not possible for me to
get in a word; nor did I desire to do so, for he really interested
me. He described places as if he saw them before him; he
recalled the distinguished men whom he had met forty years
ago as if he had seen them the day before; he mentioned their
names in full, Christian name and surname, gave their ages at


## p. 14981 (#565) ##########################################

ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
14981
the time, related their histories, their pedigrees, their posterity,
with marvelous exactness, and with infinite though in no way
tedious detail. From America he returned, without taking breath,
to Europe; talked of all our foreign and domestic affairs with
incredible unconstraint (for I had no title to his confidence);
spoke very badly of the Emperor of Russia, whom he called "Mon-
sieur Nicolas"; casually alluded to Lord Palmerston as a rogue;
and ended by holding forth at length on the Spanish marriages,
which had just taken place, and the annoyances to which they
subjected him on the side of England.
"The Queen is very angry with me," he said, "and displays
great irritation; but after all," he added, "all this outcry won't
keep me from driving my own cart. "
Although this phrase dated back to the Old Order, I felt
inclined to doubt whether Louis XIV. ever made use of it on
accepting the Spanish Succession. I believe, moreover, that
Louis Philippe was mistaken; and to borrow his own language,
that the Spanish marriages helped not a little to upset his cart.
After three quarters of an hour the King rose, thanked me
for the pleasure my conversation had given him (I had not
spoken four words), and dismissed me, feeling evidently as
delighted as one generally is with a man before whom one thinks
one has spoken well. This was my last audience of the King.
Louis Philippe improvised all the replies which he made, even
upon the most critical occasions, to the great State bodies; he
was as fluent then as in his private conversation, although not so
happy or epigrammatic. He would suddenly become obscure,
for the reason that he boldly plunged headlong into long sen-
tences, of which he was not able to estimate the extent nor per-
ceive the end beforehand; and from which he finally emerged
struggling and by force, shattering the sense and not completing
the thought.
In this political world thus constituted and conducted, what
was most wanting, particularly towards the end, was political life
itself. It could neither come into being nor be maintained
within the legal circle which the Constitution had traced for it:
the old aristocracy was vanquished, the people excluded. As all
business was discussed among members of one class, in the in-
terest and in the spirit of that class, there was no battle-field for
contending parties to meet upon. This singular homogeneity of
position, of interests, and consequently of views, reigning in what


## p. 14982 (#566) ##########################################

14982
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
M. Guizot had once called the legal country, deprived the par-
liamentary debates of all originality, of all reality, and therefore
of all genuine passion. I have spent ten years of my life in
the company of truly great minds, who were in a constant state
of agitation without succeeding in heating themselves, and who
spent all their perspicacity in vain endeavors to find subjects
upon which they could seriously disagree.
On the other hand, the preponderating influence which King
Louis Philippe had acquired in public affairs, which never per-
mitted the politicians to stray very far from that prince's
ideas lest they should at the same time be removed from power,
reduced the different colors of parties to the merest shades, and
debates to the splitting of straws. I doubt whether any Par-
liament (not excepting the Constituent Assembly,—I mean the
true one, that of 1789) ever contained more varied and brilliant
talents than did ours during the closing years of the Monarchy
of July. Nevertheless I am able to declare that these great ora-
tors were tired to death of listening to one another, and what
was worse, the whole country was tired of listening to them. It
grew unconsciously accustomed to look upon the debates in the
Chambers as exercises of the intellect rather than as serious dis-
cussions, and upon all the differences between the various Par-
liamentary parties - the majority, the left centre, or the dynastic
opposition as domestic quarrels between children of one family
trying to trick one another. A few glaring instances of corrup
tion, discovered by accident, led it to presuppose a number of
hidden cases, and convinced it that the whole of the governing
class was corrupt; whence it conceived for the latter a silent
contempt, which was generally taken for confiding and contented
submission.
The country was at that time divided into two unequal parts,
or rather zones: in the upper, which alone was intended to con-
tain the whole of the nation's political life, there reigned nothing
but languor, impotence, stagnation, and boredom; in the lower,
on the contrary, political life began to make itself manifest by
means of feverish and irregular signs, of which the attentive
observer was easily able to seize the meaning.
I was one of these observers; and although I was far from
imagining that the catastrophe was so near at hand and fated to
be so terrible, I felt a distrust springing up and insensibly grow-
ing in my mind, and the idea taking root more and more that


## p. 14983 (#567) ##########################################

ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
14983
we were making strides towards a fresh revolution. This denoted
a great change in my thoughts; since the general appeasement
and flatness that followed the Revolution of July had led me
to believe for a long time that I was destined to spend my life
amid an enervated and peaceful society. Indeed, any one who
had only examined the inside of the governmental fabric would
have had the same conviction. Everything there seemed com-
bined to produce with the machinery of liberty a preponderance
of royal power which verged upon despotism; and in fact, this
result was produced almost without effort by the regular and
tranquil movement of the machine. King Louis Philippe was
persuaded that so long as he did not himself lay hand upon that
fine instrument, and allowed it to work according to rule, he was
safe from all peril. His only occupation was to keep it in order
and to make it work according to his own views, forgetful of
society upon which this ingenious piece of mechanism rested; he
resembled the man who refused to believe that his house was
on fire, because he had the key in his pocket. I had neither the
same interests nor the same cares; and this permitted me to
see through the mechanism of institutions and the agglomeration
of petty every-day facts, and to observe the state of morals and
opinions in the country. There I clearly beheld the appearance
of several of the portents that usually denote the approach of
revolutions; and I began to believe that in 1830 I had taken for
the end of the play what was nothing more than the end of an
act.
In a speech delivered in the Chamber of Deputies, January
29th, 1848, I said:-
-
"I am told that there is no danger because there are no
riots; I am told that because there is no visible disorder on the
surface of society, there is no revolution at hand.
"Gentlemen, permit me to say that I believe you are de-
ceived. True, there is no actual disorder; but it has entered
deeply into men's minds. See what is passing in the breasts of
the working classes,-who, I grant, are at present quiet. No
doubt they are not disturbed by political passion, properly so
called, to the same extent that they have been; but can you not
see that their passions, instead of political, have become social?
Do you not see that there are gradually forming in their breasts
opinions and ideas which are destined not only to upset this or
that law, ministry, or even form of government, but society itself,


## p. 14984 (#568) ##########################################

14984
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
until it totters upon the foundations on which it rests to-day?
Do you not listen to what they say to themselves each day? Do
you not hear them repeating unceasingly that all that is above
them is incapable and unworthy of governing them; that the
present distribution of goods throughout the world is unjust; that
property rests on a foundation which is not an equitable founda-
tion? And do you not realize that when such opinions take
root, when they spread in an almost universal manner, when
they sink deeply into the masses, they are bound to bring with
them sooner or later, I know not when nor how, a most formi-
dable revolution?
"This, gentlemen, is my profound conviction: I believe that
we are at this moment sleeping on a volcano. I am profoundly
convinced of it. "


## p. 14985 (#569) ##########################################

14985
LYOF TOLSTOY
-
(1828-)
BY WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
HERE is a certain unsatisfactory meagreness in the facts of
Lyof Tolstoy's life, as they are given outside of his own
works. In these he has imparted himself with a fullness
which has an air almost of anxiety to leave nothing unsaid,—as if
any reticence would rest like a sense of insincerity on his conscience.
But such truth as relates to dates and places, and seems the basis
of our knowledge concerning other men, is with him hardly at all
structural: we do not try to build his moral or intellectual figure
upon it or about it.
He is of an aristocratic lineage, which may be traced back to
Count Piotr Tolstoy, a friend and comrade of Peter the Great; and
he was born in 1828 at Yasnaya Polyana near Tula, where he still
lives. His parents died during his childhood, and he was left with
their other children to the care of one of his mother's relatives at
Kazan, where he entered the university. He did not stay to take a
degree, but returned to Yasnaya Polyana, where he lived in retirement
till 1851; when he went into the army, and served in the Caucasus
and the Crimea, seeing both the big wars and the little. He quitted
the service with the rank of division commander, and gave himself
up to literary work at St. Petersburg, where his success was in every
sort most brilliant; but when the serfs were set free, he retired to
his estates, and took his part in fitting them for freedom by teach-
ing them, personally and through books which he wrote for them.
He learned from these poor people far more than he taught them;
and his real life dates from his efforts to make it one with their
lives. He had married the daughter of a German physician in Mos-
cow, the admirable woman who has remained constant to the
idealist through all his changing ideals, and a family of children
was growing up about him; but neither the cares nor the joys of his
home sufficed to keep him from the despair which all his military
and literary and social success had deepened upon him, and which
had begun to oppress him from the earliest moments of moral con-
sciousness.
The wisdom that he learned from toil and poverty was, that life
has no meaning and no happiness except as it is spent for others;


## p. 14986 (#570) ##########################################

14986
LYOF TOLSTOY
and it did not matter that the toiling poor themselves illustrated the
lesson unwittingly and unwillingly. Tolstoy perceived that they had
the true way often in spite of themselves; but that their reluctance
or their ignorance could not keep the blessing from them which had
been withheld from him, and from all the men of his kind and qual-
ity. He found that they took sickness and misfortune simply and
patiently, and that when their time came to die, they took death
simply and patiently. To them life was not a problem or a puzzle:
it was often heavy and hard, but it did not mock or deride them; it
was not malign, and it was not ironical. He believed that the hap-
piness he saw in them came first of all from their labor.
He
So he began to work out his salvation with his own hands.
put labor before everything else in his philosophy, and through all
his changes and his seeming changes he has kept it there. There
had been a time when he thought he must destroy himself, after
glory in arms and in letters had failed to suffice him, after the love
of wife and children had failed to console him, and nothing would
ease the intolerable burden of being. But labor gave him rest; and
he tasted the happiness of those whose existence is a continual sacri-
fice through service to others.
He must work hard every day, or else he must begin to die at
heart; and so he believes must every man. But then, for the life
which labor renders tolerable and significant, some sort of formulated
faith was essential; and Tolstoy began to search the Scriptures.