Towards perfection, step by step

[Below is my letter to Elénor François Elie, Comte de Moustier, on May 17, 1788, when I was US Minister to France.]

I am sorry that your first impressions have been disturbed by matters of etiquette, where surely they should least have been expected to occur. These disputes are the most insusceptible of determination, because they have no foundation in reason. Arbitrary and senseless in their nature, they are arbitrarily decided by every nation for itself. These decisions are meant to prevent disputes, but they produce ten where they prevent one. It would have been better, therefore, in a new country, to have excluded etiquette altogether; or if it must be admitted in some form or other, to have made it depend on some circumstance founded in nature, such as the age or station of the parties.

However, you have got over all this, and, I am in hopes, have been able to make up a society suited to your own dispositions. Your situation will doubtless be improved by the adoption of the new constitution, which I hope will have taken place before you receive this. I see in this instrument, a great deal of good. The consolidation of our government, a just representation, an administration of some permanence, and other features of great value, will be gained by it.

There are, indeed, some faults, which revolted me a good deal in the first moment; but we must be contented to travel on towards perfection, step by step. We must be contented with the ground which this constitution will gain for us, and hope that a favorable moment will come for correcting what is amiss in it.