racies think themselves to be pitied; the
contrary is remarked to be the case. No men are fonder of their own
condition. Life would have no relish for them if they were delivered
from the anxieties which harass them, and they show more attachment to
their cares than aristocratic nations to their pleasures.

I am next led to inquire how it is that these same democratic nations,
which are so serious, sometimes act in so inconsiderate a manner. The
Americans, who almost always preserve a staid demeanor and a frigid air,
nevertheless frequently allow themselves to be borne away, far beyond
the bound of reason, by a sudden passion or a hasty opinion, and they
sometimes gravely commit strange absurdities. This contrast ought not to
surprise us. There is one sort of ignorance which originates in extreme
publicity. In despotic States men know not how to act, because they are
told nothing; in democratic nations they often act at random, because
nothing is to be left untold. The former do not know--the latter
forget; and the chief features of each picture are lost to them in a
bewilderment of details.

It is astonishing what imprudent language a public man may sometimes use
in free countries, and especially in democratic States, without being
compromised; whereas in absolute monarchies a few words dropped by
accident are enough to unmask him forever, and ruin him without hope of
redemption. This is explained by what goes before. When a man speaks
in the midst of a great crowd, many of his words are not heard, or are
forthwith obliterated from the memories of those who hear them; but
amidst the silence of a mute and motionless throng the slightest whisper
strikes the ear.

In democracies men are never stationary; a thousand chances waft them
to and fro, and their life is always the sport of unforeseen or (so to
speak) extemporaneous circumstances. Thus they are often obliged to
do things which they have imperfectly learned, to say things they
imperfectly understand, and to devote themselves to work for which they
are unprepared by long apprenticeship. In aristocracies every man has
one sole object which he unceasingly pursues, but amongst democratic
nations the existence of man is more complex; the same mind will almost
always embrace several objects at the same time, and these objects are
frequently wholly foreign to each other: as it cannot know them all
well, the mind is readily satisfied with imperfect notions of each.

Wh