BOHEMIANISM.

Westport Times, Volume II, Issue 230, 27 April 1868, Page 3

BOHEMIANISM.

(J?rom the Imperial HevieiD.) The pleasant days of Bohemian bachelorhood are looked back upon with regret by many a man for the uxor has proved the reverse ot'placens And most of us can remember a friend of our youth, whose Bohemian disposition was special charm, the possessor of" a snug little kingdom up four-pair of stairs," as Thackeray called it, the place of which he tells us—- " Long, long, through, the hours, and the chimes, Here we talk of old hooks, and old friends and old times As we sit in a fog, made of rich Latakie This chamber is pleasant to you, friend, and me."

Boheinianism may be excused in youth, as long as it is not unduly exalted; but nothing can be said in favor of a Bohemian old age. For a man past the prime of life to be si ill, indulging in the pleasures of youth to be sowing a perennial crop of wild oats, shows that his existance has been ' wasted, and that his work in the world has been left undone. The follies that we can forgive in the young become intolerable in old age. An old Bohemian should be scouted and avoided. " Once we have come to forty years," our sojourn in Bohemia should be at an end. A. curious instance of the Bohemianism of youth giving place to a decorous manhood is to be found in many a hard»working medical man. Medical students, as a rule, are the most determined supporters of a Bohemian life; and yet we find.them settling down into respectable members of an important and responsible profession. Artists, too, are, in theiryouthful day great believers in the ji>ys of Bohemianism;butwheuthey become prosperous, they abandon the uncertain delights of Bohemia for the securer and more tranquil pleasure of domestic life. "Writers ot fiction have grossly exaggerated the Bohemian propensities of artists, andfew people know now hard and indefatigably some of them work. But our special complaint against the writers who glorify this manner of living is, that they are fond of making literary men their typical Bohemians, and inducing a belief in the mind of the public that Bohemianism is the special characteristic of those who follow the profession of letters. As regards a certain class of litterateurs' unfortunately, such a belief Would be in accordance with the truth. There are some writers—we had almost said scribblers ■ —who make a boast of Bohemianism, and whose chief glory is that they are without the pale of society. In most cases, they are men who have j risen from the ranks of journalism, and who seemtothinkit almost anintrusion when any man, with either the birth or education of a gentleman, occupies him self with newspaper work. To such an extent has this feeling been carried, that there is, we believe, a club in Loudon, with a name indicative of the unculti* vated manners of its members, which is solely to uphold this Bohemian characteristic of journalists. The members of it are mostly obscure writers, who plume themselves upon the production of cockney witticisms, and who are not sans reproche in the matter of clean linen. They hold an ignoble conviviality tobe 'the greatest pleasure of life, and a burlesque to be the greatest literary effort of which any man is capable. They are haunters of the greenroom and the stag e-door, and are proud to enrol second-rate actors amongtheir number. They* have a perfect right, of course, to indulge themselves in any way they please, and to set Up any standard of conduct which may seem good to them. But they, and others who hold their opinions, have disseminated a belief that such an existence is the normal condition of any man who writes; that Bohemianism is the general accompaniment of literary work. And this has con-

tributed, inagreatmeasure,toinake the position of a writer in thiß country very inferior to that which he would have obtained on the Continent. Of course, the anonymous system gives a>man less chance of individual reputation than he would have were articles signed, as in Prance; but it is the reputation of journalists, as a class, to which we specially allude. And the stigma of Bohemianisin which is attached to them' owing to the conduct of certain men among their number, has done more than anything else to make that reputation a somewhat unsavoury one. Newspaper-men, we fear as a rule, hardly possess sweetness and light enough to satisfy Mr. Arnold. There is, however, a fashion in this as in everything else, and Bohemianism is, we believe, dying out. What Mr. Swinburne calls the " lilies and languors of Vice." Eespectability, social position and a balance at your banker's, are beginning to be the objects ol legitimate ambition. A shock head of hair and no visible linen are no longer considered the indispensable attribute of a man of genius; and a disregard of the ordinary rules of society receives a harder name than eccentricity. It is well that this should be so. Work in the world is increasing for every man. And those who make " gaslit midnight " life's true noon, as a Bohemian poet sings, will find that the morning will bring a more lasting repentance for the follies of the night than such as can be washed away in sherry and selteer*