We are grieved to hear that neither you nor Madame de Tocqueville are as well as your friends could wish you to be.
My grippe, after lasting for three months, has gradually subsided, and
I look to the voyage to America as a cure for all remains of it.
I have most punctually carried your remembrances to all the persons honoured by being inscribed on your card.
Though I have often seen Gladstone, it has always been among many other persons, and he has been so full of talk, that I have never been able to allude to your subject. I mentioned it to Mrs. Gladstone on Saturday last: she said that there was not a person in all France whom her husband so much admired and venerated as you—therefore, if there was any appearance of neglect, it could have arisen only from hurry or mistake. I shall see him again on Thursday, when we are going all together to a rehearsal of Ristori's, and I will talk to him: we shall there be quiet.
Things here are in a very odd state. The Government is supported by the Tories because it calls itself Tory, and by the Whigs and Radicals because it obeys them. On such terms it may last for an indefinite time.
Kindest regards from us all to you both.
Ever yours,
N.W. SENIOR.
9 Hyde Park Gate, Kensington, August 2, 1858.
My dear Tocqueville,—I ought, as you know, to be on the Atlantic by this time; but I was attacked, ten days ago, with lumbar neuralgia, which they are trying, literally, to rub away. If I am quite well on the 13th, I shall go on the 14th to America.