the fruits hang too high—on the other, where
they are more accessible, there are too
many gatherers. Accordingly, the path of
the Bohemian is nearly always one of hardship
and difficulty. To be assured of this
fact, it is not necessary to penetrate into their
cheerless chambers, and watch their struggles
—for struggles they very frequently are—for
existence. Sufficient is it to meet them in
their moments of relaxation at the café, where
the general complaint of the proprietor is,
that they do not "consume" enough. That
is not their fault, they answer, but simply the
fault of the infamous ready-money system
upon which the house is conducted. Here
you will learn how a celebrated musician
(celebrated in the Bohemian sense) was, on the
previous day, obliged to sponge upon somebody
for a breakfast; and how a great
painter, of transcendental tendencies, spent
the morning in intriguing for a dinner—
with much matter of the same suggestive
kind. The subject of borrowing—its uses
and abuses—is frequently brought under grave
consideration. Among the Bohemians, it is
said, there are some who have reduced the
practice to a science. They keep an
alphabetical list of their acquaintances, with the
days on which they are known to receive
money, and the sums which may be expected
from each, according to his means. These
they tick off from the list as they are used up
one by one,- a deadly class to meet with, whatever
be your clime or condition; for it is
reported that they know how to request the
loan of five francs in every language under
the sun.

But throughout all this battle for existence
the Bohemians never lose their gaiety, nor
their steady fidelity to Art; which communicates
its influence to all around them. Such
an effect, indeed, has their mingled facetiae
and transcendentalism had upon the unprepared
mind of a waiter at the café, that I hear
he has become an idiot in the flower of his
youth. Another garçon, under the same
corrupting influence, has been detected writing
amatory verses to the bar-maid.

If the Bohemian never loses his gaiety in
the darkest days of his distresses, the effect of
an occasional gleam of sunshine, in the shape
of a remittance, can scarcely be conceived. A
member of the fraternity will appear one
morning among his brothers with a five
hundred franc bill in his hand. Perhaps it is the
fruit of some lucky speculation; or, perhaps,
he is an amateur Bohemian, whose parents are
wealthy. Of this class, it should be observed,
there are many: with means at their command
to live in respectable competence, they prefer
the life of the Bohemian from love and
sympathy, and are quite contented to take their
chance of its pains and pleasures. However
that may be, there are the five hundred francs,
to be devoted to the public good, or the
public detriment; and, as long as the money
lasts, there is no end to the most frantic
festivities. The last penny expended, the
Bohemians, settle down into their former state
of hazardous enjoyment, and contented care.

It may lie asked what is the ultimate
destination of the majority? Do they ever
emancipate themselves from the fatal fascination
of this mode of life? Certainly, they do;
that is to say, most of them who have any
real claims to distinction, attain it in the end.
These are nodays of "mute inglorious Miltons,"
especially in France, where talent must
eventually make its way. The Bohemians are
continually losing old, and as continually gaining
new, members. One of the tribe will suddenly
disappear from the old familiar scenes, and
will be given up as lost. A few months
elapse, and his companions find themselves
invited to a banquet in a fashionable quarter.
Here they find their old associate emerged
from his chrysalis condition, and winging his
way among the fruits and flowers of high
life. He has in the mean time been thinking
and working; has made a success, and has
become that most happy of human beings—
more particularly in Paris—a popular author,
with an audience of his own— a constituency
that elect him to a permanent seat among the
honoured of the land. From his proud position
he looks back to his Bohemian days as
perhaps the most happy, and certainly not
the least useful portion of his experience.
For the rest, there are many to whom such
honours are but idle dreams; they live on in
the old way, unnoticed, unknown, and, worse
still, unprinted. They abuse "the world" in
their own little coteries, and imagine
themselves martyrs. Instead of being great lights
of the age, they flicker futilely, or burn
themselves prematurely out by over-excitement.
In the mean time, it is not the public that is
to blame—and scarcely they themselves—poor
fellows: it is their misfortune that they have
not discovered their true vocation in the
beginning, or taken warning in time; that
they have not condescended to clerkships, or
apprenticed themselves to respectable
cheesemongers.

"There is a pleasure in painting which none
but painters know;" there is also a pleasure
in authorship which one need not be successful
to experience. The struggle to ascend
Parnassus has its fascination, futile though
it be. One taste of the waters of Castaly
is too intoxicating for many; yet who,
at its fountain, would wish to be a moderate
drinker? Perhaps, then, some of my readers,
who may have had a drop too much of
that celebrated beverage, will make some
allowances for the poor, blind, flattered, and
fascinated Bohemian.

THE THIRD VOLUME
OF
"HOUSEHOLD WORDS,"
Price 5s. 6d., neatly bound in Cloth, can be had of all
Booksellers.