The gross receipts amounted to some L4,000: he received about L1,200, which left him with a few hundreds above his expenses.

His optimism regarded this as a triumph.
One is fain to confess today that these lectures make very poor reading.

There is not a new thought in them; not even a memorable expression; they are nothing but student work, the best passages in them being mere paraphrases of Pater and Arnold, though the titles were borrowed from Whistler.

Dr.Ernest Bendz in his monograph on _The Influence of Pater and Matthew Arnold in the Prose-Writings of Oscar Wilde_ has established this fact with curious erudition and completeness.
Still, the lecturer was a fine figure of a man: his knee-breeches and silk stockings set all the women talking, and he spoke with suave authority.

Even the dullest had to admit that his elocution was excellent, and the manner of speech is keenly appreciated in America.
In some of the Eastern towns, in New York especially, he had a certain success, the success of sensation and of novelty, such success as every large capital gives to the strange and eccentric.
In Boston he scored a triumph of character.