Year: 1875

from the New ork Tribunc.l


When Z man of letters wants money, raj
meut, roof, and something TO eat and to drink,
and feels that he lacks all these and even the
hope of them, because Of his own egregious
folly, he finds but little consolation in the
prospect of a handsome monument, and of
many mortuary notices-tcn lines each of
"agate close''-in the newspapers. Your true
laN-living writer would prefer cash payment.
His Unwise ways, which leave him something
of his taste, his talent, his dexterity, his mis-
Ccllaneous abilities, reduce almost to nothing
his love Of appreciation, his self-respect, and
his desire for posthumous remembrance. He
likes his cellar, his chat over the beers, his
pipe, and a reasonable certainty of bed and
breakfast. Respectability, which is the lead
ing idea of 4 monument, irTitateS one who is
in bad repute with sober people, as they usu-
ally are with him. Steady study he Is incapa-
BILE of; and so he is of persistent work;
but he can at pinch, and under the spur
of an empty stomach and pocket, crowd
a great deal of study and general toll into
a few hours. One who has sometimes a
plenty Of money, and during long intervals
none at all, grows improVident out of the
very uncertainty of his income, until at last,
though opportunity should present, he can no
longer take kindly to fixed financial ways
Sensitive possibly to the last degree, he uses
no precaution against words and deeds which
are sure to wound him sharply. He accepts
the character of a man who cannot get along.
Fools gird, proper people chide, old friends
look asEHnce, doors are shut in his face, loans
are refused, the beer shop closes his account,
and nothing may be left him but the hospit-
able streets, up aud down which he walks,
may be, at midnight, and is not very unhappy,
thinking of poets and philosophers, recalling
scraps of verse and anecdote, dreaming of
youth and lost love, and the dead; or of the
shore, the meadow, the grove and the hill
which his childhood knew. To cleanly livers
he is mYstery-to all manner of church
members and merchants and men Of family.
Those who read his few things in newspaper
or magazine would be astonished at his figure.
He isn't in the least nice, and he cannot be.


Yet If the world were just it would give him
at least $3.50 week as q moral example.
There are sermons in his shabbiness and shift
lessness, and warnings in his wants, and in the
woeful end which surely awaits him. Lads
with love of literature who fancy that it
would be fine thing to be a Bohemian like
Savage and Chatterton and Dermody had better
think twenty times before they rush into any
such folly. For, in the first place, if there
were no material points to be considered,
beginners should take heed of the waste of
ability which the sO-called Bohemian life
brings with it. They will not find it pleasant
at the end of a loose and unbridled career to
reflect that they might have done much and
have done so little-a few verses: a tale or so,
a farce, few jokes in the comic newspapers,
and a miscellany of pen and ink stuff forgotten
in the reading. OF course, their light perform
ances have creditable Observation-Disclosures
perhaps, humor, good feeling a, suspicion of
high and honorable aspiration. 1t is generous,
doubtless, for writer to put his best into his
public writing, and to reserve his worst for his
own daily life and conversation; but such lib
erality comes to no good at last. Bad habits
take away the power of good work. Without
their constant companionship a man forgets
what is in the books. Exigency will make him
tolerant Of his own hasty faults, and unmind-
ful Of the duty OF doing his best for the mere
sake of doing it. Sensual pleasures will render
the finest hand coarse in time. "He who drinks
beer" said DIR. johnson, "thinks beer :" and
the stronger the beer the smaller the thought,
may be added. Moreover, a want of method
will make results fragmentary aud quality un-
equal, while the waste of precious time and
the unimproved "once" of opportunity will
crown the disaster Of an ill-spent life. Then
will come mems pity, harder to bear than their.
reproaches the sting of conscience the sense
of failure want, modification, the extreme Of
discomfort, and at last death and the grave,
with the undertaker's bill paid by the chari-
table and monument raised by subscription
Young gentlemen still in Liber Piim,ls, this is
the brilliant Bohemianism of which you some
times pleasantly dream. Our advice to you is
to have nothing TO do with il. Love literature
as much as you please, but cultivate habit of
paying your debts, of saving your money, OF
improving your q ne, Of keeping sober, and Of