I have not touched upon the confusions due to the decline of the intellectual powers. In that case the reason is to be sought for in the condition of the brain, and there is, I believe, no remedy. In healthy people, enjoying the complete vigor of their faculties, confusions are simply the result of carelessness and indolence, and are proper subjects for sarcasm. With senile confusions the case is very different. To treat them with hard, sharp, decided correction, as is so often done by people of vigorous intellect, is a most cruel abuse of power. Yet it is difficult to say what ought to be done when an old person falls into manifest errors of this kind. Simple acquiescence is in this case a pardonable abandonment of truth, but there are situations in which it is not possible. Then you find yourself compelled to show where the confusion lies. You do it as gently as may be, but you fail to convince, and awaken that tenacious, unyielding opposition which is a characteristic of decline in its earlier stages. All that can be said is, that when once it has become evident that confusions are not careless but senile, they ought to be passed over if possible, and if not, then treated with the very utmost delicacy and gentleness.
ESSAY XXI.
THE NOBLE BOHEMIANISM.
Amongst the common injustices of the world there have been few more complete than its reprobation of the state of mind and manner of life that have been called Bohemianism; and so closely is that reprobation attached to the word that I would gladly have substituted some other term for the better Bohemianism had the English language provided me with one. It may, however, be a gain to justice itself that we should be compelled to use the same expression, qualified only by an adjective, for two states of existence that are the good and the bad conditions of the same, as it will tend to make us more charitable to those whom we must always blame, and yet may blame with a more or less perfect understanding of the causes that led them into error.
The lower forms of Bohemianism are associated with several kinds of vice, and are therefore justly disliked by people who know the value of a well-regulated life, and, when at the worst, regarded by them with feelings of positive abhorrence. The vices connected with these forms of Bohemianism are idleness, irregularity, extravagance, drunkenness, and immorality; and besides these vices the worst Bohemianism is associated with many repulsive faults that may not be exactly vices, and yet are almost as much disliked by decent people. These faults are slovenliness, dirt, a degree of carelessness in matters of business, often scarcely to be distinguished from dishonesty, and habitual neglect of the decorous observances that are inseparable from a high state of civilization.
After such an account of the worst Bohemianism, in which, as the reader perceives, I have extenuated nothing, it may seem almost an act of temerity to advance the theory that this is only the bad side of a state of mind and feeling that has its good and perfectly respectable side also. If this seems difficult to believe, the reader has only to consider how certain other instincts of humanity have also their good and bad developments. The religious and the sexual instincts, in their best action, are on the side of national and domestic order, but in their worst action they produce sanguinary quarrels, ferocious persecutions, and the excesses of the most degrading sensuality. It is therefore by no means a new theory that a human instinct may have a happy or an unfortunate development, and it is not a reason for rejecting Bohemianism, without unprejudiced examination, that the worst forms of it are associated with evil.
Again, before going to the raison d’être of Bohemianism, let me point to one consideration of great importance to us if we desire to think quite justly. It is, and has always been, a characteristic of Bohemianism to be extremely careless of appearances, and to live outside the shelter of hypocrisy; so its vices are far more visible than the same vices when practised by men of the world, and incomparably more offensive to persons with a strong sense of what is called “propriety.” At the time when the worst form of Bohemianism was more common than it is now, its most serious vices were also the vices of the best society. If the Bohemian drank to excess, so did the nobility and gentry; if the Bohemian had a mistress, so had the most exalted personages. The Bohemian was not so much blamed for being a sepulchre as for being an ill-kept sepulchre, and not a whited sepulchre like the rest. It was far more his slovenliness and poverty than his graver vices that made him offensive to a corrupt society with fine clothes and ceremonious manners.
Bohemianism and Philistinism are the terms by which, for want of better, we designate two opposite ways of estimating wealth and culture. There are two categories of advantages in wealth,—the intellectual and the material. The intellectual advantages are leisure to think and read, travel, and intelligent conversation. The material advantages are large and comfortable houses, tables well served and abundant, good coats, clean linen, fine dresses and diamonds, horses, carriages, servants, hot-houses, wine-cellars, shootings. Evidently the most perfect condition of wealth would unite both classes of advantages; but this is not always, or often, possible, and it so happens that in most situations a choice has to be made between them. The Bohemian is the man who with small means desires and contrives to obtain the intellectual advantages of wealth, which he considers to be leisure to think and read, travel, and intelligent conversation. The Philistine is the man who, whether his means are small or large, devotes himself wholly to the attainment of the other set of advantages,—a large house, good food and wine, clothes, horses, and servants.