BOHEMIA.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9254, 5 June 1908, Page 2

BOHEMIA.

» ITS SHORTNESS OF MONEY. (" Saturday Review.") > The essence of Bohemianism was always good nature, unvindictiveness, a too amiable tolerance of things as they were. The Bohemian would not join in the struggle to acquire cash; without envy or even uneasiness he let others do the scrambling and only asked to be allowed to go on in the way ho found most pleasant. Nearly all poets, painters, musicians, actors became Bohemians: for their work, when they did any, could not be done in a shop or office^, and routine was impossible. (It took an Act of Parliament to make a musician a rogue, just as it takes one to make a solicitor a gentleman.) Marlowe and Shakespeare were Bohemians ; one was killed in a tavern brawl, and the other, if some accounts hold truth, I died of a dirunken bout. The history J is full of pathos and comedy, with some j terrible tragedy. It is not without good reason that we associate Bohemianism with perpetual shortness of money: how could a Bohemian have money when money could only be gained by any man — be he never so great a poet } musician, painter — in so far as he was a clever tradesman and adopted trade methods? From the beginning the merciless bourgeoisie pressed the tribe of Bohemia with the grim weapon starvation. They lasted out a long time ; but in the end the bourgeoisie conquered. A man with any real stuff in him was fain to get out of Bohemia — if he could — for the sake of comfort and ease to do his work, to get the stuff out of him.