It is worth while to lay so much stress upon the composite character of this new society because it helps to account for the sort of literature New York was to produce. These French exiles could not help imparting an additional lightness and vivacity and polish to the manners of their American hosts; and the most characteristic and genuine literary product of New York during the next half-century was to be urbane and elegant in character rather than profound or forcible — a “polite” literature in the narrower sense of the term.[83] more heroes and generals all over town than would fill a new Iliad?
Griswold's Republican Court, p. 448.
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