They ask for beauties, self-proffered and easily enjoyed; above all, they must have what is unexpected and new.

Accustomed to the struggle, the crosses, and the monotony of practical life, they require rapid emotions, startling passages--truths or errors brilliant enough to rouse them up, and to plunge them at once, as if by violence, into the midst of a subject.
Why should I say more?
or who does not understand what is about to follow, before I have expressed it?
Taken as a whole, literature in democratic ages can never present, as it does in the periods of aristocracy, an aspect of order, regularity, science, and art; its form will, on the contrary, ordinarily be slighted, sometimes despised.

Style will frequently be fantastic, incorrect, overburdened, and loose--almost always vehement and bold.

Authors will aim at rapidity of execution, more than at perfection of detail.

Small productions will be more common than bulky books; there will be more wit than erudition, more imagination than profundity; and literary performances will bear marks of an untutored and rude vigor of thought--frequently of great variety and singular fecundity.