Matthew Arnold, Civilization in the United States: First and Last Impressions of America.

[112] taste, and that it is written, moreover, in a style which many French writers adopt, but which I find trying — a style cut into short paragraphs and wearing an air of rigorous scientific deduction without the reality. Very likely, however, I do M. de Tocqueville injustice. My debility in high speculation is well known, and I mean to attempt his book on Democracy again when I have seen America once more, and when years may have brought to me, perhaps, more of the philosophic mind. Meanwhile, however, it will be evident how serious a matter I think it to write a worthy book about the United States, when I am not entirely satisfied with even M. de Tocqueville's.

But before I went to America, and when I had no expectation of ever going there, I published, under the title of “A word about America,” not indeed a book, but a few modest remarks on what I thought civilization in the United States might probably be like. I had before me a Boston newspaper article, which said that if I ever visited America I should find there such and such things; and taking this article for my text I observed that from all I had read and all I could judge I should for my part expect to find there rather such and such other things, which I mentioned. I said that