The Nevada journal., 1856-12-05

DE TocaUEvILLE ON THE FRENcH.-
De Tocqueville thus speaks of his coun-
trymen:
"pid there ever appear on the earth
anot ther nation SO fertile in contrasts. 90
extreme in its acts-more under the do,
miniPn of feeling, less ruled by princi-
Iple; always better or worse than was
antiSipated--now below the level of hu-
manfty, now far above; people so un-
cha1geable in its leading features that
it m ay be recognized by portraits drawn
two or three thousand years ago, and yet
so fekle in its daily opinions and tastes
that it becomes at last mystery to it.
self, and is as much astonished as stran-
gers at the sight of what it has done:
natri rally fond of home and routine; yet
when once driven forth and forced to
adopt new customs, ready to carry prin-
ciples to any lengths and to dare any:
thing; indoeile by indisposition, but bet
ter pleased with the arbitrary and even
violent rule of a sovereign than with
free and regular government under its
chief citizens; now fixed in hostility 10
subjection of any kind, now SO passion
ately welded to servitude that nations
madeto serve cannot vie with it; led by
thread so long chat no word of resistance
is spoken, wholly ungovernable when
the standard of revolt is raised-thus
always deceiving its masters, who fear
it too much or too little never so free
that it cannot be subjugated, never SO
kept down that it cannot break the
yoke; qualified for every pursuit, yet
excelling in nothing but war; the most
brilliant and most dangerous nation of
Europe, and the one that is surest to IN
spire admiration, hatred, or terror, but
never Indifference"
VERBosITY OF AMERICAN LITERA-
TuRE.-Our writers for the press, espe-
cially the periodical press, have no con-
ception whatever of style as an art
Hence they heap up huge collection
of sentences, in the most tumid and tu-
multuous way, in which all idea of Sc
quence is lost soon after starting, and
the graces of simplicity and clear-how-
ing speech are merged in torrent of
verbose and windy loquacity. So wide
spread has become this disease, that the
appearance of any book, discourse, re-
view-article, or newspaper leader, writ
ten in terse and vigorous English, ex-
cites universal remark. Not only is our
literature thus burdened with the vices
of a cumbrous and chaotic style, but our
language is suffering from growing
plethora of vicious forms of expression
and slang phrases. Pure idiomatic En-
gli$h has become almost obsolete, and
its place is usurped by a mongrel and
depraved dialect, composed of the oldest
tumble of French, German, fustian, and
Billingsgate, with long words ending in
olo ogy, osity and alton. This frightful
medley of the worst materials seems
first to have risen from the gutter into
ord dinary conversation, then to have been
inflated in the newspapers, and finally
to have been reproduced in more per-
ma nent forms. Theirpermanence, how
eve pr, thanks to the preservation of bet
ter models, and to the moral sanity of
Gth$ human intellect, is not yet an estab-
lished fact; and we congratulate our
co tntrymen, in view of the vast daily
spawn of the American press, and the
en- nprmous editions of irreclaimable trash
which are daily sold, that probably there
are no books which the world will more
willingly let die.-NorM american Re
ui4w.