The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1901-08-11

OBLIGATORY stage In order TO arrive at glory.
Too much blame cannot be attached TO
paradoxes. which turn aside from the path
In which they might have succeeded SO
many people who come to q wretcneo
mode those to whom a true vocation only
gives the right Of entering on IT,
1T is these dangerous preachings, this
useless posthumous exaltation, that nave
created the ridiculous race of the unap-
preciated. the whining poets whose muse
has always red eyes and nl-combed locks
and all the medi0criries or impotence, VINO,
doomed to nonpubiication. call the muse
a harsh stepmother and art an executioner:
All truly powerful minds have their word
to say, and. indeed. utter IL sooner or later.
1t Is wrong to be moved TO pity over the
lamentations and stock phrases of that
class of intruders and inutilities entered on
an artistic career In spite OF art itself. and
who go 10 make up In Bohemia a class in
which idleness. debauchery and psrisitism
form the foundation of manners"
Glass No. 8: 1--WE will also cite a singu-
lar variety Of Bohemians who might be
called amateurs. They find in Bohemian
life an existence full of seductions. Not to
dine every day. to sleep in the open on wet
nights and to dress in nankeen in the
month of December seems to them the
paradise Of human felicity, and TO enter 1t
some abandon the home and others the
otuut lHdt ltduc 10 al dSSultu 4todiN-
They suddenly turn their backs upon an
honorable future to see the adventures of
a hazardous career. But as the most robust
cannot stand a mode of living that would
render a Hercules they soon
give up the game. and Fastening back TO
their paternal roast joint, marry their lit
tie cousins, set up as a notary in a town OF
thirty thousand inhabitants, and by their
ireside of an evening have the satisfac-
ton of relating their artistic misery with
the magniloquence of a traveller narrating
a tiger hunt.
"Others persist and put their self-esteem
in 1t, but when once they have exhausted
their resources of credit which a young
fellow with well-to-do relatives can always
find, they are more wretched than the
real Bohemians, who, never having had
any other resources, have at least those of
intelligence. We knew one OF these amateur
Bohemians, who, having remained three
years In Bohemia and quarreled with his
family, died one morning and was taken to
the common grave in a pauper's hearse. He
had ten thousand francs a year"
x x x
Glass No. 4: I'VE now come TO the real
Bohemia. Those who compose II are
really amongst those called by art, and
have the chance also of being amongst its
elect. This Bohemia, like the others,
bristles with perils, two abysses flank it or
either side-poverty and doubt. But be-
tween these two CULTS there is at least a
road leading to a goal which the Bohe-
mians can see with their eyes, pending a
time when they shal touch it with their
hands. Rain or dust, cloud or sunshine.
nothing checks the bold adventurers, whose
sins are backed by a virtue. Their mind is
kept ever on the alert by their ambi-
ton. : "
such is in brief that Bohemian life, bad
ly known TO the Puritans of society, de-
cried by the Pufitans of art, insulted by
all the timid and jealous mediocrities who
cannot find enough of outcries, lies and
calumnies to drewn the voices and the
names of those who arrive through the
vestibule to renown by Harvesting audacity
to their talent.
"A life of patience, of courage, in which
one cannot tight unless clad in a strong
armor of indifference, impervious to the at
tacks OF fools and the envious, in which
one must not. If one would not stumble on
the road, quit for a single moment that
pride In oneself which serves as a leaning
staff; a charming and terrible life. which
has its conquerOrs and its martyrs and
on which one should not enter save in re-
signing oneself in advance TO the pitiless
law vac victiS.
This clear. incisive analysis does not
sound as ii Murger were going back on
his old friends; it is rather like he were
giving advice TO the thousands of the art
ambitious yet unborn; it is terribly bad
for the average American Bohemian coterie.