loose morality not infrequently charged against this record of Bohemian
life. I promised that I should try to say something about this matter
ere I brought these jottings to a close; but now that it is definitely
before us, I do not feel, after all, that there is very much to be said.
Our judgment on such a book as this, ethically considered, must finally
depend on the point of view from which we regard it, and this point of
view will always be at bottom so much an affair of temperament, outlook,
training, bias, that it is not likely to be much affected by any
arguments, adverse or favorable. “Certainly,” Murger once imagines one
of his readers saying, “I shall not allow this story to fall into the
hands of my daughter.” To this, doubtless, most Anglo-Saxon fathers
would say amen, and there is little question that they would, on the
whole, be wise in so doing. I readily admit that it would be better that
the perusal of such a work as this, as of many other great and enduring
pieces of literature, should be left for those whose minds have been
schooled and sobered by the discipline of real life, and who are thus in
a position to bring Murger’s imaginary scenes, with all their bewitching
humor, magic of description, and charm of style, to the touchstone of
actual experience. But while I concede this much, I cannot for a moment
go with those who would, therefore, place the volume on their unofficial
“Index Expurgatorius,” on the score that it will be found dangerous to
morality. Such a notion seems to me simply absurd, and due to an entire
misapprehension of what it is in literature that renders it injurious in
its effects. Murger drew his material from a world he had known and
lived in, and he incorporates all its irregularities of conduct, and
very much of its wantonness. Yet I challenge any intelligent and
broad-minded reader to deny that the atmosphere of his “Scenes” is
almost always fresh and wholesome. Those at least who know something of
the French novel, from “La Dame aux Camélias” onward, and of some of the
English fiction produced within recent decades, by writers who boldly
claim place in the ranks of the moralists, will hardly feel called upon
to attack our author on this particular head. Nowhere, let it be said
emphatically, does Murger deliberately give himself up to the worship of
the great Goddess of Lubricity; nowhere does he willingly throw the halo
of poetry over mere physical passion; nowhere does he go out of his way
to show vice as vice in glowing or attractive colors. These may read
like phrases of the most conventional criticism, but they are here
thoroughly to the point. The very story which the writer stops short for
a moment to interject the imaginary comment quoted above, is as pure and
delicate as a love-story well could be, and only a reader capable of
sucking poison out of a lily, could be disturbed in the slightest degree
by the irregularity of the relations existing between Jacques and poor
Francine. It can never be often urged that in such a case as
this—perhaps in all art whatsoever—the one fundamentally essential thing
is treatment; and with Murger’s handling of his theme, no possible fault
could be found, even by the most austere and exacting critic.
A more substantial charge may, I think, be brought against the “Scenes,”
on the ground that in their delightful pages the shiftless, improvident,
hand-to-mouth existence of Rodolphe and his friends is made too engaging
and seductive. Are there not, it may be asked, scores of young men who
believe that they have (in very large capitals) Genius and a Mission in
Art, and who need nothing but the incentive of such a volume as this to
lead them to throw aside the sober concerns of law or commerce, and
voluntarily exchange a career of useful, if monotonous, toil, for one
wherein immediate misery is practically certain, and ultimate success
only a remote chance? Youths of some sensibility and ambition, who hate
the counting-house and the desk; who have written verses or made
sketches which have been praised by injudicious friends; and who have
devoured the numerous biographies of those who, having commenced life in
uncongenial labor, boldly kicked over the traces and finally made for
themselves a position and a name, are prone enough, it may be alleged,
to mistake themselves for great men in embryo, and to set up their backs
against the daily routine and the common task, without the aid of a book
which paints Bohemia so constantly on its pleasantest side, and gives to
even its struggles and sufferings a romantic charm, which the jog-trot
round of experience does not possess. All this, perhaps, is true. At any
rate, I have myself known one young fellow of the class referred to who,
under Murger’s inspiration, played for a time at Bohemianism, allowed
his hair to grow down over his shoulders, wore by preference a
threadbare coat, and posed as an unappreciated genius. His genius, I
believe, remains unrecognized still; but he has long since assumed a
respectable garb, and given other outward and visible signs of his
perversion to conventionality. And yet, even with this instructive case
well in mind, I think too much might easily be made of the harmful
tendencies of Murger’s book. The _Sturm und Drang_ period of youth, the
period of ferment, and aimless experiment, and general unrest, will
always be fraught with perils of one or another kind; and a few wild
dreams of vague ambition, some spiritual green-sickness, an attack or
two of the hysterics of social revolt, a little affectation of Byronism,
or Shelleyism, or Murgerism, are not the worst of these. Fortunately,
the real world is a businesslike and remorseless disciplinarian, and in
the school of practical experience, a nature essentially healthy will
presently right itself, and be none the worse—perhaps even the
better—for a handful of battered illusions and some pricked bubbles of
fancy. And as for the natures not fundamentally healthy—well, Life the
Schoolmistress has her own effectual way with these also.
But should there perchance be any young man in danger of taking the
Bohemian fever a trifle too seriously, we will refer him for treatment
to a very satisfactory physician, a specialist, one may say, in the
complaint—Murger himself. Properly read, and read through to the end,
the “Scenes” should prove their own corrective; and if their full
significance is not clear, the preface furnishes the needed commentary.
It is but simple justice to Murger to say that he himself had no
sympathy whatever with the indefinite ambitions and mawkish
sentimentalism of a certain class of young men, who mistake the cravings
of aspiration for the promptings of genius, and turn to art because they
are fit for nothing else. Again and again does he insist upon the stern
realities of the artist’s probation; again and again does he raise the
voice of warning to those who would rashly decide to commit themselves
to the artist’s career.
“Il en est dans les luttes de l’art à peu près comme à la
guerre—toute la gloire conquise rejaillit sur le nom des chefs.
L’armée se partage pour récompense les quelques lignes d’un
ordre du jour. Quant aux soldats frappés dans le combat, on les
enterre là où ils sont tombés, et une seule épitaphe suffit pour
vingt mille morts.”[31]
Footnote 31:
“Les Derniers Buveurs d’Eau,” in “Dona Sirène.” Murger uses precisely
the same words in the preface just referred to.
-----
These are solemn and uncompromising words. And scarcely less solemn are
the phrases in which he describes the life of Bohemia as “charming but
terrible, having its conquerors and its martyrs”—a life upon which no
one should enter “who is not prepared beforehand to submit to the
inexorable law of _Væ Victis_!” Woe to the conquered indeed! In the
brilliant pages of the world’s history, the name and fortune of the one
who succeeds alone are inscribed; those of the nine hundred and
ninety-nine who ignominiously and miserably fail pass into everlasting
oblivion.
THE PRESSWORK ON THIS BOOK WAS
DONE IN SAN FRANCISCO, AT THE
PRINTING SHOP OF THE E. D. TAYLOR
COMPANY, IN THE MONTH OF OCTOBER
AND YEAR EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND
NINETY-SEVEN.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Transcriber’s note:
Page 13, ‘sequested’ changed to ‘sequestered,’ “in the sequestered
neighborhood”
Page 48, ‘euphuism’ changed to ‘Euphuism,’ “Yet Euphuism and Italianism
were”
Page 69, comma inserted after ‘Lowell,’ “asks Mr. Lowell,”
Page 80, ‘euthusiasm’ changed to ‘enthusiasm,’ “versatility of
enthusiasm”
Page 137, comma struck after “Cléopâtre”
Page 137, comma inserted after “Le Grand Cyrus”
Page 148, ‘D’Aumont’ changed to ‘d’Aumont,’ “into the mouth of d’Aumont”
Page 158, comma struck after ‘prevailing,’ “to hit the prevailing taste”
Page 159, ‘ambibitious’ changed to ‘ambitious,’ “her one ambitious
effort”
Page 159, ‘consquence’ changed to ‘consequence,’ “mark the consequence!”
Page 175 footnote, second ‘a’ struck before ‘true,’ ““Nun” a “true
novel.””
Page 188, ‘cookshops’ changed to ‘cook-shops,’ “kitchens and the
cook-shops”
Page 188 footnote 30, single quote changed to double quote before
“Scènes de la Vie de Bohème”
Page 205, ‘thfs’ changed to ‘this,’ “this meeting with a poet”
Page 208, ‘Medicis’ changed to ‘Médicis,’ “bric-a-brac dealer, Father
Médicis”
Page 216, ‘courtersy’ changed to ‘courtesy,’ “By courtesy it was held”
End of Project Gutenberg's Idle Hours in a Library, by William Henry Hudson