self-conceit is a masculine characteristic, I know, but the Parisian lecturer carries it off with art. He is an artist in his genius for believing in himself. How many great men have I gone forth to hear talk of their art or of themselves, and come away amazed by the string of admirably delivered commonplaces they have uttered!
M. Gustave Larroumet is a lecturer all Paris was wild about some years ago. I was told that for love or money you could not get a place at one of his lectures, unless you subscribed beforehand for the whole course, and even then that he was bombarded with declarations, like a popular tenor, and that young girls died of undeclared love for him. Never was such a popular lecturer as M. Larroumet! I went in dread and awe. Should I, too, succumb, and add one more to the daily thousand and one declarations of a hopeless passion? The vast hall was thronged, the dresses were exquisite, the bonnets dazzling. All the young girls of fashionable Paris were there, with note-books and scented pocket-handkerchiefs for the expected great emotions. He came, the popular lecturer, and never was I more grievously disillusioned. He spoke well, his gesticulation and enunciation were equally delightful to hear and behold. He was, what one might expect him to be after such a course of public worship, the blasé fine gentleman of
