"The absence of intellectual and moral culture, in occupations which rendered it unnecessary for those who worked only to administer food to themselves and profit or luxury to the class of masters, could only account for the absence of forehead, of the ornamental parts of that face which was moulded after a divine model."
We perused this sentence more than once before we could fathom its meaning. Mr. Slidell wishes to say, that narrowness of forehead in the rabble is owing to want of mental exercise—they being laborers not thinkers. But from the words of our author we are led to conclude that some occupations (certainly very strange ones) rendered it unnecessary for those who worked, to administer food to themselves—that is, to eat. The pronoun "it," however, will be found, upon examination, to refer to "moral culture." The repetition of the word "only" is also disagreeable, and the entire passage is overloaded with verbiage. A rigid scrutiny will show that all essential portions of the intended idea are embodied in the lines Italicised. In the original sentence are fifty-four words—in our own eighteen—or precisely one third. It follows, that if all the Lieutenant's sentences had been abridged in a similar manner—a process which would have redounded greatly to their advantage—we might have been spared much trouble, and the public much time, trouble, and expense—the "American in England" making its appearance in a duodecimo of one hundred and ninety-two pages, rather than in two octavos of five hundred and seventy-six.
At page 122, vol. I, we have what follows.
"My situation here was uncomfortable enough; if I were softly cushioned on one side, this only tended, by the contrast, to increase the obduracy of a small iron rod, which served as a parapet to protect me from falling off the precipice, over which I hung toppling, and against which I was forced with a pressure proportioned to the circumstances of my being compressed into a space somewhat narrower than myself; the seat having doubtless been contrived to accommodate five men, and there being no greater anatomical mistake than to suppose there would be more room because four of them were women."
'If I were,' in this sentence, is not English—but there are few persons who will believe that "if" does not in all instances require the subjunctive. In the words "a small iron rod which served as a parapet to protect me from falling off the precipice over which I hung, and against which I was forced," &c. let us say nothing of the injudicious use of the word parapet as applied to a small iron rod. Passing over this, it is evident, that the second relative pronoun "which," has for its antecedent, in strict syntactical arrangement, the same noun as the first relative pronoun "which"—that is to say, it has the word "precipice" for its antecedent. The sentence would thus imply that Mr. Slidell was forced against the precipice. But the actual meaning (at which we arrive by guessing) is, that Mr. Slidell was forced against the iron rod. In the words "I was forced with a pressure proportioned to the circumstances of my being compressed into a space," &c. let us again be indulgent, and say as little as possible of the tautology in "pressure" and "compressed." But we ask where are the circumstances spoken of? There is only one circumstance—the circumstance of being compressed. In the conclusion of the passage where the Lieutenant speaks of "a seat having doubtless been contrived to accommodate five men, and there being no greater anatomical mistake than to suppose there would be more room because four of them were women," it is quite unnecessary to point out the "bull egregious"—a bull which could have been readily avoided by the simple substitute of "persons" for "men."
We must be pardoned for copying yet another sentence. We will do so with the single remark that it is one of the most ludicrously ill-arranged, and altogether ungainly pieces of composition which it has ever been our ill fortune to encounter.
"I was not long in discovering that the different personages scattered about the room in such an unsocial and misanthropic manner, instead of being collected about the same board, as in France or my own country, and, in the spirit of good fellowship and of boon companions, relieving each other of their mutual ennuis, though they did not speak a word to each other, by which they might hereafter be compromised and socially ruined, by discovering that they had made the acquaintance of an individual several grades below them in the scale of rank, or haply as disagreeably undeceived by the abstraction of a pocket-book, still kept up a certain interchange of sentiment, by occasional glances and mutual observation."
Such passages as the foregoing may be discovered passim in "The American in England." Yet we have heard Mr. Slidell's English called equal to the English of Mr. Irving—than which nothing can be more improbable. The Lieutenant's book is an excellent book—but then it is excellent in spite of its style. So great are the triumphs of genius!