Long ago I knew an English Bohemian who had a small income that came to him very irregularly. He had begun life in a profession, but had quitted it that he might travel and see the world, which he did in the oddest, most original fashion, often enduring privation, but never ceasing to enjoy life deeply in his own way, and to accumulate a mass of observations which would have been quite invaluable to an author. In him the two activities, physical and mental, were alike so energetic that they might have led to great results had they been consistently directed to some private or public end; but unfortunately he remained satisfied with the existence of an observant wanderer who has no purpose beyond the healthy exercise of his faculties. In usefulness to others he was not to be compared with my good and admirable Philistine, but in the art of getting for himself what is best in the world he was by far the more accomplished of the two. He fully enjoyed both the physical and the intellectual life; he could live almost like a red Indian, and yet at the same time carry in his mind the most recent results of European thought and science. His distinguishing characteristic was a heroic contempt for comfort, in which he rather resembled a soldier in war-time than any self-indulgent civilian. He would sleep anywhere,—in his boat under a sail, in a hayloft, under a hedge if belated, and he would go for days together without any regular meal. He dressed roughly, and his clothes became old before he renewed them. He kept no servant, and lived in cheap lodgings in towns, or hired one or two empty rooms and adorned them with a little portable furniture. In the country he contrived to make very economical arrangements in farmhouses, by which he was fed and lodged quite as well as he ever cared to be. It would be difficult to excel him in simple manliness, in the quiet courage that accepts a disagreeable situation or faces a dangerous one; and he had the manliness of the mind as well as that of the body; he estimated the world for what it is worth, and cared nothing for its transient fashions either in appearances or opinion. I am sorry that he was a useless member of society,—if, indeed, such an eccentric is to be called a member of society at all,—but if uselessness is blamable he shares the blame, or ought in justice to share it, with a multitude of most respectable gentlemen and ladies who receive nothing but approbation from the world.
Except this fault of uselessness there was nothing to blame in this man’s manner of life, but his want of purpose and discipline made his fine qualities seem almost without value. And now comes the question whether the fine qualities of the useless Bohemian may not be of some value in a life of a higher kind. I think it is evident that they may, for if the Bohemian can cheerfully sacrifice luxury for some mental gain he has made a great step in the direction of the higher life, and only requires a purpose and a discipline to attain it. Common men are completely enslaved by their love of comfort, and whoever has emancipated himself from this thraldom has gained the first and most necessary victory. The use that he will make of it depends upon himself. If he has high purposes, his Bohemianism will be ennobled by them, and will become a most precious element in his character; and if his purposes are not of the highest, the Bohemian element may still be very valuable if accompanied by self-discipline. Napoleon cannot be said to have had high purposes, but his Bohemianism was admirable. A man who, having attained success, with boundless riches at his disposal, could quit the luxury of his palaces and sleep anywhere, in any poor farmhouse, or under the stars by the fire of a bivouac, and be satisfied with poor meals at the most irregular hours, showed that, however he may have estimated luxury, he was at least entirely independent of it. The model monarch in this respect was Charles XII. of Sweden, who studied his own personal comfort as little as if he had been a private soldier. Some royal commanders have carried luxury into war itself, but not to their advantage. When Napoleon III. went in his carriage to meet his fate at Sedan the roads were so encumbered by wagons belonging to the Imperial household as to impede the movements of the troops.
There is often an element of Bohemianism where we should least expect to find it. There is something of it in our English aristocracy, though it is not called Bohemianism here because it is not accompanied by poverty; but the spirit that sacrifices luxury to rough travelling is, so far, the true Bohemian spirit. In the aristocracy, however, such sacrifices are only temporary; and a rough life accepted for a few weeks or months gives the charm of a restored freshness to luxury on returning to it. The class in which the higher Bohemianism has most steadily flourished is the artistic and literary class, and here it is visible and recognizable because there is often poverty enough to compel the choice between the objects of the intelligent Bohemian and those of ordinary men. The early life of Goldsmith, for example, was that of a genuine Bohemian. He had scarcely any money, and yet he contrived to get for himself what the intelligent Bohemian always desires, namely, leisure to read and think, travel, and interesting conversation. When penniless and unknown he lounged about the world thinking and observing; he travelled in Holland, France, Switzerland, and Italy, not as people do in railway carriages, but in leisurely intercourse with the inhabitants. Notwithstanding his poverty he was received by the learned in different European cities, and, notably, heard Voltaire and Diderot talk till three o’clock in the morning. So long as he remained faithful to the true principles of Bohemianism he was happy in his own strange and eccentric way, and all the anxieties, all the slavery of his later years were due to his apostasy from those principles. He no longer estimated leisure at its true value when he allowed himself to be placed in such a situation that he was compelled to toil like a slave in order to clear off work that had been already paid for, such advances having been rendered necessary by expenditure on Philistine luxuries. He no longer enjoyed humble travel but on his later tour in France with Mrs. Horneck and her two beautiful daughters, instead of enjoying the country in his own old simple innocent way, he allowed his mind to be poisoned with Philistine ideas, and constantly complained of the want of physical comfort, though he lived far more expensively than in his youth. The new apartments, taken on the success of the “Good-natured Man,” consisted, says Irving, “of three rooms, which he furnished with mahogany sofas, card-tables, and bookcases; with curtains, mirrors, and Wilton carpets.” At the same time he went even beyond the precept of Polonius, for his garments were costlier than his purse could buy, and his entertainments were so extravagant as to give pain to his acquaintances. All this is a desertion of real Bohemian principles. Goldsmith ought to have protected his own leisure, which, from the Bohemian point of view, was incomparably more precious to himself than Wilton carpets and coats “of Tyrian bloom.”
Corot, the French landscape-painter, was a model of consistent Bohemianism of the best kind. When his father said, “You shall have £80 a year, your plate at my table, and be a painter; or you shall have £4,000 to start with if you will be a shop-keeper,” his choice was made at once. He remained always faithful to true Bohemian principles, fully understanding the value of leisure, and protecting his artistic independence by the extreme simplicity of his living. He never gave way to the modern rage for luxuries, but in his latter years, when enriched by tardy professional success and hereditary fortune, he employed his money in acts of fraternal generosity to enable others to lead the intelligent Bohemian life.
Wordsworth had in him a very strong element of Bohemianism. His long pedestrian rambles, his interest in humble life and familiar intercourse with the poor, his passion for wild nature, and preference of natural beauty to fine society, his simple and economical habits, are enough to reveal the tendency. His “plain living and high thinking” is a thoroughly Bohemian idea, in striking opposition to the Philistine passion for rich living and low thinking. There is a story that he was seen at a breakfast-table to cut open a new volume with a greasy butter-knife. To every lover of books this must seem horribly barbarous, yet at the same time it was Bohemian, in that Wordsworth valued the thought only and cared nothing for the material condition of the volume. I have observed a like indifference to the material condition of books in other Bohemians, who took the most lively interest in their contents. I have also seen “bibliophiles” who had beautiful libraries in excellent preservation, and who loved to fondle fine copies of books that they never read. That is Philistine, it is the preference of material perfection to intellectual values.
The reader is, I hope, fully persuaded by this time that the higher Bohemianism is compatible with every quality that deserves respect, and that it is not of necessity connected with any fault or failing. I may therefore mention as an example of it one of the purest and best characters whom it was ever my happiness to know. There was a strong element of noble Bohemianism in Samuel Palmer, the landscape-painter. “From time to time,” according to his son, “he forsook his easel, and travelled far away from London smoke to cull the beauties of some favorite country side. His painting apparatus was complete, but singularly simple, his dress and other bodily requirements simpler still; so he could walk from village to hamlet easily carrying all he wanted, and utterly indifferent to luxury. With a good constitution it mattered little to him how humble were his quarters or how remote from so-called civilization. ‘In exploring wild country,’ he writes, ‘I have been for a fortnight together, uncertain each day whether I should get a bed under cover at night; and about midsummer I have repeatedly been walking all night to watch the mystic phenomena of the silent hours.’ He enjoyed to the full this rough but not uncomfortable mode of travelling, and was better pleased to take his place, after a hard day’s work, in some old chimney corner—joining on equal terms the village gossip—than to mope in the dull grandeur of a private room.”
Here are two of my Bohemian elements,—the love of travel and the love of conversation. As for the other element,—the love of leisure to think and read,—it is not visible in this extract (though the kind of travel described is leisurely), but it was always present in the man. During the quiet, solitary progress by day and night there were ample opportunities for thinking, and as for reading we know that Palmer never stirred without a favorite author in his pocket, most frequently Milton or Virgil. To complete the Bohemian we only require one other characteristic,—contentment with a simple material existence; and we are told that “the painting apparatus was singularly simple, the dress and other bodily requirements simpler still.” So here we have the intelligent Bohemian in his perfection.
All this is the exact opposite of Philistine “common sense.” A Philistine would not have exposed himself, voluntarily, to the certainty of poor accommodation. A Philistine would not have remained out all night “to watch the mystic phenomena of the silent hours.” In the absence of a railway he would have hired a carriage, and got through the wild country rapidly to arrive at a good dinner. Lastly, a Philistine would not have carried either Milton or Virgil in his pocket; he would have had a newspaper.
Some practical experience of the higher Bohemianism is a valuable part of education. It enables us to estimate things at their true worth, and to extract happiness from situations in which the Philistine is both dull and miserable. A true Bohemian, of the best kind, knows the value of mere shelter, of food enough to satisfy hunger, of plain clothes that will keep him sufficiently warm; and in the things of the mind he values the liberty to use his own faculties as a kind of happiness in itself. His philosophy leads him to take an interest in talking with human beings of all sorts and conditions, and in different countries. He does not despise the poor, for, whether poor or rich in his own person, he understands simplicity of life, and if the poor man lives in a small cottage, he, too, has probably been lodged less spaciously still in some small hut or tent. He has lived often, in rough travel, as the poor live every day. I maintain that such tastes and experiences are valuable both in prosperity and in adversity. If we are prosperous they enhance our appreciation of the things around us, and yet at the same time make us really know that they are not indispensable, as so many believe them to be; if we fall into adversity they prepare us to accept lightly and cheerfully what would be depressing privations to others. I know a painter who in consequence of some change in the public taste fell into adversity at a time when he had every reason to hope for increased success. Very fortunately for him, he had been a Bohemian in early life,—a respectable Bohemian, be it understood,—and a great traveller, so that he could easily dispense with luxuries. “To be still permitted to follow art is enough,” he said; so he reduced his expenses to the very lowest scale consistent with that pursuit, and lived as he had done before in the old Bohemian times. He made his old clothes last on, he slung a hammock in a very simple painting-room, and cooked his own dinner on the stove. With the canvas on his easel and a few books on a shelf he found that if existence was no longer luxurious it had not yet ceased to be interesting.