in conversation to delight in music as the duller, the denser, and more sentimental Germans do. But to have a seat at the Conservatoire denotes wealth, the prestige of fashion; and so they go to each concert more to see and be seen than to hear. In doing so they are conscious of being part of the _chic_ world. In the _loges_ around you, men and women talk of every mortal thing except the music heard; and the chief anxiety of both sexes, if I may judge by the testimony of my ears on repeated occasions, is to know what baron, count, marquis, marchioness, or duchess is present, with smart remarks upon their dress. The Conservatoire is a traditional school of music and of the drama; prizes are awarded upon the test of examination, and reputations started here which may end in celebrity. [Illustration] CHAPTER VII HOME-LIFE IN FRANCE There is no race on the face of the earth whose home-life is so enviable as that of the French. Both men and women bring the best of their qualities to the making and maintaining of this admirable domestic institution. It is, perhaps, too perfect, too wadded, for any people which may hold the theory that domestic happiness is an inferior ideal. It explains to us why the French are bad colonists, why initiative and enterprise are less developed here than in the regions of rougher interiors. The atmosphere of a French home is the most delightful I know. I cannot see why men and women should be expected willingly to tear themselves away from it in search of dubious prosperity and happiness among barbarians. After all, it seems to me that human happiness is as high an ideal as any of us can justly lay claim to; and if we want our own happiness we are pretty certain to want that of others, for the few who find their happiness in the misery of those around them are lower than the brutes. In England and in Ireland I have seen men and women of this sort, persons of diseased selfishness, who, in their homes, surrounded by others, live only for themselves, and whose sole mission in life apparently is to render those same victims of their proximity as wretched as possible.