Frenchie, how'd you do that?
"I have lived a great deal with the people in the United States." (369)
Ah, jeez. Frenchie, you realize Montreal is not, was not, never has been, in the United States, non?
You didn't stay put much. How many days did you spend in the USA?
271.
Nine months! Sorry, Frenchie that does not constitute "living a great deal with?" I've had marriages last longer than that. Lived a "great deal" with 'em, the unfortunate ex's! Didn't get to know 'em in a LOT longer than nine months.
You visited some big places for 1831-2 America, how many Americans did you live with in those 271 days?
How many Americans did you live with upon "the shores of a lake embosomed in forests coeval with the world?" "Upon the shores of the lake [where] no object attested the presence of man except a column of smoke?"
The answer to those are "None," Frenchie since all you found there were "ruins."
Why in the world would you go to a place devoid of people?
Dude, look: can we talk? You didn't go there. You were 26 years old, you did not speak English well, you were here for nine months, your charge was to investigate prisons!, it makes no sense that you would go "the shores of a lake embosomed in forests coeval with the world." You did not base all of Democracy in America on your travels. You were in upstate New York--to see Sing-Sing. You read English, didn't speak it well, but you read English, and when you got back to France and began writing D.i.A., you read The Pioneers, didn't you? EARLIEST descriptive novel published in the United States. And you borrowed from it. Right?
Monsieur Tocqueville, this detracts not one whit from your achievement, which is incomparable. You nailed us, to use the contemporary patois, and for all time. The nation, and its people, and its place in the world, the challenges it faces and those it has overcome, all are still as you describe them. It is astonishing. You cannot have been expected to have written so penetratingly, and enduringly, and at such length, on a 271 day sojourn entirely. And you did not.
"I have lived a great deal with the people in the United States." (369)
Ah, jeez. Frenchie, you realize Montreal is not, was not, never has been, in the United States, non?
You didn't stay put much. How many days did you spend in the USA?
271.
Nine months! Sorry, Frenchie that does not constitute "living a great deal with?" I've had marriages last longer than that. Lived a "great deal" with 'em, the unfortunate ex's! Didn't get to know 'em in a LOT longer than nine months.
You visited some big places for 1831-2 America, how many Americans did you live with in those 271 days?
How many Americans did you live with upon "the shores of a lake embosomed in forests coeval with the world?" "Upon the shores of the lake [where] no object attested the presence of man except a column of smoke?"
The answer to those are "None," Frenchie since all you found there were "ruins."
Why in the world would you go to a place devoid of people?
Dude, look: can we talk? You didn't go there. You were 26 years old, you did not speak English well, you were here for nine months, your charge was to investigate prisons!, it makes no sense that you would go "the shores of a lake embosomed in forests coeval with the world." You did not base all of Democracy in America on your travels. You were in upstate New York--to see Sing-Sing. You read English, didn't speak it well, but you read English, and when you got back to France and began writing D.i.A., you read The Pioneers, didn't you? EARLIEST descriptive novel published in the United States. And you borrowed from it. Right?
Monsieur Tocqueville, this detracts not one whit from your achievement, which is incomparable. You nailed us, to use the contemporary patois, and for all time. The nation, and its people, and its place in the world, the challenges it faces and those it has overcome, all are still as you describe them. It is astonishing. You cannot have been expected to have written so penetratingly, and enduringly, and at such length, on a 271 day sojourn entirely. And you did not.
