Extract from a Letter, June 6Th, 1835.

I have not given up any of my youthful enthusiasm; I feel, perhaps, more strongly than ever the desire for nations to become free, for the reform of governments, for the progress of morality and happiness in human society. I hope that I have gained in theory and in experience, if, on the other hand, I have been disenchanted of what I hoped in almost all the men I have known: but this disenganno does not affect the ideas and the sentiments dear to my heart, because my own flag has never been carried into the midst of the conflict. I am a liberal; still more, I am a republican, but never have I been a democrat. I have nothing in common with that party which alarms you by its violence and by its wild theories, any more than with that which is intoxicated with the love of order and furious for tranquillity. My ideal, in respect to government, is union; it is the agreement of the monarchical, aristocratical, and democratieal elements; it is the Roman republic, in short, in its best days of virtue and of strength, and not the modern principles, which I do not acknowledge to be principles.

13th October, 1835.—The Courrier contains an article on my “Condition of Workpeople,” which, though full of fine compliments, is in bad faith and wants comprehension; but as the author has not understood what I have said on the national income, I think it desirable to write a new article on this subject. I shall show, first, the importance of income in domestic economy, and in what it differs from every other form of wealth. I shall then follow out the income of each class in the nation, showing how it arises always mediately or immediately from labour, but from profitable labour; how labour is less profitable the more income diminishes, under its divers forms of wages, profit, interest, rent of fixed capital, and lastly, salaries for services to society or to individuals; whence by a new road I shall arrive at the necessity of labour being in demand in order to be profitable, and that the labour of a great number must be in demand in order for the great number to have income.

I have received two letters from Mad. M., who says she is enchanted with my article on the “Workpeople,” and informs me that Didier will make it the subject of an article in the Revue des deux Mondes; asks me for the sequel to my article on “The Prince,” and to reprint all my articles separately (the first idea of the sciences Sociales). This latter has given me great pleasure, and has a little compensated for my discontent at the article in the Courrier.

November 15th, 1835.—At a dinner given to Dr. Bowring by the Syndic Rigaud of Geneva, he says Dr. B. was very animated; he knows an infinitude of things, and is very intelligent. But he hurt me by his tone of radicalism, almost of Jacobinism, for France. Colonel D. hurt me still more; there is in that party a degree of hatred, of defiance, of presumption, which it is extremely disagreeable to me to mention. I did not find it less so to-day in the contrary party at Maurice's. Every one seems to me to require to be converted by my book, but it is exactly the reason why it will have no success. Bowring is here, charged by the English ministry with making researches into the commerce of Switzerland; he appears very much struck with the prosperity of the country.

December 1st, 1835.—Received a letter from Lord Mahon on my last pamphlets, very flattering and very affectionate. It encourages me as to the work at which I am labouring, (Les Etudes,) and makes me hope for success.

January 29th, 1836.—I continued the reading of Ropolini's Egyptian monuments. He inspires me with much respect for his knowledge, for his ingenious inferences, for his modesty. I begin to feel, in fact, how the sacred language of Egypt has been all at once revealed to us, but at the same time the glance which all this enables me to cast upon history affects me more and more. I find an affinity between the progress of ancient civilization, which brought on its ruin, and ours, which alarms me for human kind. It is always by the same proceeding, centralizing, uniting states as if they were patrimonies, that it was expected to increase their wealth and power, whilst really they became continually weaker and poorer.

June 2nd, 1836.—I worked at my Introduction to-day. I wrote eight pages, and I take a lively interest in it. Perhaps I deceive myself as to the merit of my last works, but my Etudes appear to me to be what I have done best; however, no one in France or England has yet written to me about my politics, and I am afraid when my political economy appears it will be the same. These are subjects on which each one has his opinion settled, and finds it more easy to let his adversary's book fall unnoticed than to answer it.

November 10th —I worked at my essay on Colonization with great interest. I wrote eight pages to-day, and I have great enjoyment in these summaries, which embrace in one point of view the history of the universe. The particular merit of my political economy is continually to bring together, as relating to one another, history, morality, and chresmatistics. I have succeeded in finding almost all I wanted of Greek history for this article.