There is more deep love of humanity in this than in giving many alms, and it was not the less deep for being the product of impulse and sympathetic emotion, and not of a logical sorites. Another scene in a café is worth referring to, because it shows in the same way that at this time Rousseau's egoism fell short of the fatuousness to which disease or vicious habit eventually depraved it. In 1752 he procured the representation of his comedy of Narcisse, which he had written at the age of eighteen, and which is as well worth reading or playing as most comedies by youths of that amount of experience of the ways of the world and the heart of man. Rousseau was amazed and touched by the indulgence of the public, in suffering without any sign of impatience even a second representation of his piece. For himself, he could not so much as sit out the first; quitting the theatre before it was over, he entered the famous café de Procope at the other side of the street, where he found critics as wearied as himself. Here he called out, "The new piece has fallen flat, and it deserved to fall flat; it wearied me to death. It is by Rousseau of Geneva, and I am that very Rousseau."[232] The relentless student of mental pathology is very likely to insist that even this was egoism standing on its head and not on its feet, choosing to be noticed for an absurdity, rather than not be noticed at all. It may be so, but this inversion of the ordinary form of vanity is rare enough to be not unrefreshing, and we are very loth to hand Rousseau wholly over to the pathologist before his hour has come. II.