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[80] conditions, on the other hand, had much to do with the character of this work; and it is quite necessary to understand the composition of New York society after the Revolution in order to understand its literary product. It was probably both less refined and less provincial than that of Philadelphia had been during its precedence. In its lighter aspects it may be best judged, like all other social matters, by the testimony of women. The most brilliant belle of the period, Miss Vining of Philadelphia,--who was a correspondent of Lafayette and was so much admired by the French officers that Marie Antoinette invited her, through Mr. Jefferson, to the Tuileries,--complains in a letter to Governor Dickinson in 1783 that Philadelphia has lost all its gaiety with the removal of Congress from the city, but adds, “You know, however, that here alone [i. e., in Philadelphia] can be found a truly intellectual and refined society, such as one naturally expects in the capital of a great country.” Miss Franks, from whom we have already quoted, speaks in a similar tone: “Few ladies here [in New York] know how to ”
Boston, New York and Chicago. Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1903.
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