knelt.  He was very anxious to convey that he was not listening to the prayers; but rather inconsistently, he now and then uttered an audible grunt of disapproval.  No one can enjoy the choral service more than I do, and the music that afternoon was very fine; but I could not enjoy it or join in it as I wished, for the disgust I felt at the animal before me, and for my burning desire to see him turned out of the sacred place he was profaning.  But the thing which chiefly struck me about the individual was not his vulgar and impudent profanity; it was his intolerable self-conceit.  He plainly thought that every eye under the noble old roof was watching all his movements.  I could see that he would go home and boast of what he had done, and tell his friends that all the clergy, choristers, and congregation had been awestricken by him, and that possibly word had by this time been conveyed to Lambeth or Fulham of the weakened influence and approaching downfall of the Church of England.  I knew that the very thing he wished was that some one should rebuke his conduct, otherwise I should certainly have told him either to behave with decency or to be gone.

I have sometimes witnessed a curious manifestation of this vain sense of self-importance.  Did you ever, my reader, chance upon such a spectacle as this:  a very commonplace man, and even a very great blockhead, standing in a drawing-room where a large party of people is assembled, with a grin of self-complacent superiority upon his unmeaning face?  I am sure you understand the thing I mean.  I mean a look which conveyed, that, in virtue of some hidden store of genius or power, he could survey with a calm, cynical loftiness the little conversation and interests of ordinary mortals.  You know the kind of interest with which a human being would survey the distant approaches to reason of an intelligent dog or a colony of ants.  I have seen this expression on the face of one or two of the greatest blockheads I ever knew.  I have seen such a one wear it while clever men were carrying on a conversation in which he could not have joined to have saved his life.  Yet you could see that (who can tell how?) the poor creature had somehow persuaded himself that he occupied a position from which he could look down upon his fellow-men in general.  Or was it rather that the poor creature knew he was a fool, and fancied that thus he could disguise the fact?  I dare say there was a mixture of both feelings.

You may see many indications of vain self-importance in the fact that various persons, old ladies for the most part, are so ready to give opinions which are not wanted, on matters of which they are not competent to judge.  Clever young curates suffer much annoyance from these people:  they are always anxious to instruct the young curates how to preach.  I remember well, ten years ago, when I was a curate (which in Scotland we call an assistant) myself, what advices I used to receive (quite unsought by me) from