BOHEMIANISM TO-DAY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3195, 21 May 1909, Page 4

BOHEMIANISM TO-DAY.

The Bohemianism which is apt to fascinate us in our youth, said Mr Whitelaw Reid, the American Ambassador in London, recently, is not a spur to genius, but a clog. He was striving to draw a moral from the "life and death and work of Edgar Allan Poe," and that was the most striking one he could find. The moral is true enough in a general sense, though it cannot be of much practical use now. What is known as the Bohemian temperament—the restless, undisciplined, uncontrollable, convention-hatine spirit—was probably a cause of scandal long before the days of Ishmael, the firgt conspicuous representative of the tribe, and will continue to give offence to conventional people until the end of things. But Bohemianism as a'force in art and literature, and a manifestation of antagonism to conventional theory and practice in both, has been decaying rapidly of late years, and even Paris, its traditional home, will soon know it no more. A few small coteries, composed principally of poseurs and pretenders, may continue to keep a starvelling flame flickering a little while longer, but its final extinguishment cannot be delayed much further, and will not be an object of rational regret. The circumstances which gave rise to it, and made its continuance possible, have ceased to exist. What formerly seemed picturesque and daring in it now strikes us as sordid and foolish when we see it projected beyond the circumstances which were natural to it and essential to its existence. .