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If you would like to have an idea what power men
possess to calculate the events of the future, you must visit Washington. Forty years ago, when it was a
question of building a capital for the Union, they looked, as reasonable men would, for the most
favorable spot. On the banks of the Potomack [sic] was located a green plain, which they selected. The
broad and deep river, at one end, was to bring to the new city the products of Europe; the fertile districts
behind would provision the market and surround the spot with a numerous population. Washington, in
twenty years, would be the center of the domestic and foreign trade of the Union. A million inhabitants,
arriving before very long, were predicted for it. In consequence they began to build public edifices that
could match so vast a population; streets were laid out of enormous width; there was an especial hurry to
cut down, as far as one could see, the trees that might hinder the building of houses. All that was but, on
a large scale, the story of the pot au lait:
Il etait, quand je l'eus, de grosseur raisonable.
J'aurai....
The peasant's wife and Congress reasoned in the
same fashion. The population did not come; the vessels did not mount the Potomack [sic].
Today, Washington offers the sight of an arid plain, burned by the sun, on which are scattered two or
three sumptuous edifices and the five or six villages composing the town. Unless one is Alexander or
Peter the Great, one must not meddle with creating the capital of an empire.
[It may] perhaps be the last I shall write you from
America. God be praised; we are counting on embarking the 10th or 20th of February from New York;
and thirty days being the average passage, we will arrive in France toward the 10th or 20th of March. ...
We have been here a week, and shall remain till the sixth of February. Our sojourn here is useful and
agreeable. Washington contains at the moment the outstanding men of the entire Union. It's no longer a
question for us of obtaining from them ideas about things we know nothing about: but we review, in our
conversations with them, all that we knew already more or less exactly. We determine the doubtful
points. It's a kind of counter-inquiry, which is very useful. ...
At this moment I am turning over a great many
ideas about America. Many are still in my head; quite a number are thrown, in embryo and without
order, on paper, or are spread through the conversations written up in the evening on returning to my
lodgings. All these preparations will pass under your eyes; you will find nothing interesting in itself; but
will be able to judge whether I can make some use of them.
During the last six weeks of traveling, when my
body was more tired and my mind more tranquil than for a long time past, I have thought a good deal
about what might be written about America. To try to present a complete picture of the Union would be
an enterprise absolutely impracticable for a man who has passed but a year in this immense country. I
believe, moreover, that such a work would be as boring as it would be instructive. One might be able, on
the other hand, by selecting the topics, to present only those subjects having a more or less direct relation
to our social and political state. In this way the work might have at the same time a permanent and an
immediate interest. There's the plan: but will I have the time and discover in myself the ability to carry it
out? That's the question.
There is, besides, one consideration always present
in my mind; I shall write what I think, or nothing; and all truth is not palatable (bonne a dire). In
two months at the latest, I hope, we will be able to talk about all that at our ease. ...
You say in one of your letters, dear Father, that you
are counting on me to do something worth while in the world. I want to justify your expectation even
more for your sake, I swear, than for my own.
(Pierson, p. 667)
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