She forgot the old ideal of the Southern gentleman,—that new-world heir of the grace and courtliness of patrician, knight, and noble; forgot his honor with his foibles, his kindliness with his carelessness, and stooped to apples of gold,—to men busier and sharper, thriftier and more unscrupulous.
This passage from "The Souls of Black Folk" critiques the South's shift from an ideal of gentility to one driven by material gain.
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