ristles with perils, two abysses flank it on
either side--poverty and doubt. But between these two gulfs there is at
least a road leading to a goal which the Bohemians can see with their
eyes, pending the time when they shall touch it with their hand.

It is official Bohemia so-called because those who form part of it have
publicly proved their existence, have signalised their presence in the
world elsewhere than on a census list, have, to employ one of their own
expressions, "their name in the bill," who are known in the literary and
artistic market, and whose products, bearing their stamp, are current
there, at moderate rates it is true.

To arrive at their goal, which is a settled one, all roads serve, and
the Bohemians know how to profit by even the accidents of the route.
Rain or dust, cloud or sunshine, nothing checks these bold adventurers,
whose sins are backed by virtue. Their mind is kept ever on the alert by
their ambition, which sounds a charge in front and urges them to the
assault of the future; incessantly at war with necessity, their
invention always marching with lighted match blows up the obstacle
almost before it incommodes them. Their daily existence is a work of
genius, a daily problem which they always succeed in solving by the aid
of audacious mathematics. They would have forced Harpagon to lend them
money, and have found truffles on the raft of the "Medusa." At need,
too, they know how to practice abstinence with all the virtue of an
anchorite, but if a slice of fortune falls into their hands you will see
them at once mounted on the most ruinous fancies, loving the youngest
and prettiest, drinking the oldest and best, and never finding
sufficient windows to throw their money out of. Then, when their last
crown is dead and buried, they begin to dine again at that table spread
by chance, at which their place is always laid, and, preceded by a pack
of tricks, go poaching on all the callings that have any connection with
art, hunting from morn till night that wild beast called a five-franc
piece.

The Bohemians know everything and go everywhere, according as they have
patent leather pumps or burst boots. They are to be met one day leaning
against the mantel-shelf in a fashionable drawing room, and the next
seated in the arbor of some suburban dancing place. They cannot take ten
steps on the Boulevard without meeting a friend, and thirty, no matter
where, without encountering a creditor.

Bohemian