Abel Hermant, the psychological studies of MM. Bourget, Hervieu, Prévost,—the sane and intelligent person may thank his stars that he is still free to choose his society, and is not condemned by an accident of birth to tread such a mill of vaporous frivolity and futility, of intellectual blankness and arrogance, and of senseless corruption. I do not presume to say that these clever writers are invariably accurate in their delineation of fashionable Paris, nor do I deny that there may be a good deal of exaggeration in their sombre and revolting pictures,—for what lies under the sparkling effervescence of the brightest and wittiest of Gyp's earlier work if it is not a dead-level of inanity and perversity? But their singularity consists in the fact that all are unanimous in their conclusions, in the general tenor of the life they portray. Pride of birth is the only sort of pride this class seems to possess, and for a nod the heroines of all those heraldic pages fall into the arms of the first comer and the last alike. When you make the acquaintance of a viscount, you may be sure he has an entresol somewhere for varied clandestine loves, and passes his time between encounters here, le boxe, and his "circle." One solid, useful action never seems to be entered to his account. His days and nights are devoted to accomplished idleness and seduction, and his busiest hours are those spent on his toilet. And the women of this
