Morning journal and courier., 1883-02-07
POOR FELLOW <!
BOhemianisms From BIackwood's Magazine I


 Many of the most distinguished French novelists and dramatists show much of what we English would call Bohemianism in their habits. And if it be said that it arises in great measure out of the customs of the country, must remember that their cus- toms are but the outcome of the national temperament. They sit loose to the domes- tic hearth and haunt cafes and night houses in jovial company, which conduces, again, to unbusiness-like hours in the morning when, thanks to the favor of the public they have come to afford it, they have their country houses in congenial colonies, where, living as a race apart, they are in the way of enter taining parties of eccentric visitors, to the scandal of the citizen neighbors they look down upon The bearers of some of the greatest names in modern French romance might have been merged in the most misera- ble type of Bohemianism, had it not been for the transcendent talents which, by giving them lucrative popularity, saved them from the worst consequences of their impru- dence. Dumas the elder, for example, showed himself a model man of business in one respect ;-and it was his bold originality that devised the idea of manufacturing fiction in piecework by employees he inspired. From first to last he made an immense deal of money. But he was as free with his coins as his famous quartet of musketeers with their pistols, and he lavished the results of his hard. driven bargains in the day without giv-
  Had his application been smaller and his tai ents less picturesque, and his lot cast in the Quartier Latin, he might have been in per petual straits like Henry Munger, though he would have shown more than Murger's inge- nuity in extricating himself from them. Or if we turn back to the still mightier Balzae we stand amazed at the work he accomplished under the weight of the difficulties he inn posed on himself. By far the better part of ] his ample income went to swell the profits of the usurers. He wrote his ''Balthasar Claes'' l and stEugenie Grandet" with his staircase blockaded. He was always keeping creditors and bailiffs at bay; half the Ingenuity that might have gone to the composition of l masterpieces must have run to waste in mak- l ing arrangements to meet engagements, or, more often, in devising the means of evading 1 them. The double wear and tear of the 1 brain must have been tremendous and he 1 treated the chronic mslady that came of im- 1 pecuniousness with d01tches of the strongest | coffee, swallowed at the most unreasonable | hours. Turning day into night, he was | forever burning the candle at both ends, and | the forms of his greatest extravagances were | characteristic. His subtle yet strangely discorded fancy became dependent on | surrounding itself with the costly means of | realizing the luxuries in which his imagination | loved to revel He crowded his rooms with | rich tapestries, with carving and lsces, and rare china; he never grudged the money for | among the heirlooms in Balthasar Claes' stately Flemish mansion and the taste had grown upon him as his fancy began to flag. | It was but another aspect of the carelessness which makes the Bohemian, who needs | warmth by way of inspiring halting sonnet to his mistfess' eyebrow, break up his bed- 1 stead to feed the fire.