Bohemianism

“ Bohemianism, he often thought, had been forced upon him—it was not natural to him, and though spiritual belief was dead, he experienced in church a resurrection of influences which misfortune had hypnotised, but which were stirring again into life. ”

“ Those who, depressed by the professionalism, mercenary spirit, and monotony of the best-known cabarets, declare that the spirit of Bohemianism has abandoned the Butte, do not take into account these multitudinous Bohemian conclaves, of which they are, in all probability, totally ignorant. ”

“ How does a man become a Bohemian, and can he ever renounce his allegiance to the “friends of Bohemia,” and become an ordinary citizen of the world? Yet Bohemianism is ubiquitous. The initiated ones are everywhere. In the House of Commons, at this very moment, a free and accepted Bohemian is pounding away at the ministry, and a past grand-master of Bohemianism is descending the steps of the Carlton. A Bohemian is dancing the Schottische in Westbourne Terrace, and his brother is passing underneath Temple Bar, in a cab and in custody, on his way to Mr. ”

“ Now, if we carefully consider the question we are discussing, we shall in all possibility find that all the gross and vulgar conceptions of life which are formulated into certain products of art, literature, and criticism, emanate from this Bohemian class. Its members do not, we believe, penetrate far into life of any kind, but where they do penetrate they create the vices they perceive, and reflect phenomena in the distorted mirrors of their own moral consciousness. Possessing no religion, they imagine that English life is irreligious. Having no faith, they perceive no faith anywhere. ”

“ Count Lützow, in his “History of Bohemian Literature,” frankly admits that, with few exceptions, all the men who, during the last years of Bohemian independence, were most prominent in literature and politics belonged to the Bohemian Church. Living in exile in foreign countries, there was no one left at home to resume their tasks.
Ferdinand began his anti-reformation crusade in earnest in 1621. In December of that year he issued a patent by virtue of which about one thousand teachers and ministers of the gospel of the Bohemian Church were forced to leave the country. ”

“ I have not written anything for such a Seeker, and also he shall not be able to apprehend our Meaning fundamentally, though he strives never so much about it, unless he enters into the Resignation in Christ; there he may apprehend the Spirit of the Universal, otherwise all is to no Purpose; and we faithfully warn the curious Critic not to amuse himself, for he will not effect anything in this Way, unless he himself enters thereinto, and then it will be shewn him without much seeking ”

“ We beg you to send to us from your midst, men upon whom rests the Spirit of God in hope—sober, God-fearing men, lowly of heart, desirous of peace, and seeking not their own good, but that of the Church of Christ. And may the Lord give you and all Christians peace in this world, and eternal life in the next! Amen.”
Although the Council expressed such a willingness to give the Bohemians a fair hearing, the fathers did not take into consideration that there were three religious sects in Bohemia, differing from each other even more than the Church of Rome differed from them. ”

“ In his view these advantages are leisure, travel, reading, and conversation. His estimate is different from that of the Philistine, who sets his heart on the lower advantages of riches, sacrificing leisure, travel, reading, and conversation, in order to have a larger house and more servants. But how, without riches, is the Bohemian to secure the advantages that he desires, for they also belong to riches? There lies the difficulty, and the Bohemian’s way of overcoming it constitutes the romance of his existence. In absolute destitution the intelligent Bohemian life is not possible. ”

“ These illustrious martyrs were, with the exception of Wickliffe, the first advocates of truth a century before the Reformation. Since then, in no language has the Bible been studied with more zeal and devotion than in the Bohemian. The long contest for freedom of conscience which desolated the country until the extinction of the nation is one of the great tragedies of human history.
The period from 1520 to 1620 is considered the golden age of Bohemian literature. ”

“ They were Bohemians at heart, carrying the more pardonable disorders of Bohemia into less exacting circumstances, spending their gifts and their money without a thought, luxurious, venal, insatiable. Their type is to be found to-day in the rich mercantile, especially Jewish, society of all large cities; but in Paris of the thirties and forties they were more powerful and more conspicuous. Though they could never hope to enter the Jockey Club, they were hail-fellow-well-met with the viveurs of blue blood ”

“ The merciless ridicule of Paris would have killed them in a week, without support as they were. Defiance of the bourgeois, an absolute essential of the true Bohemian creed, was, therefore, not appropriate to the first cénacle, who lived openly the life of ordinary, decent citizens, while secretly preparing the proclamations, the standards, and the weapons by which the cataclysmic victory of 1830 was to be won. In such a tense moment Bohemia could not be born. Their outlook, in the second place, was too lofty to comprehend the lower planes in which Bohemia made itself conspicuous. ”

“ The same lady will comprehend in the term the middle-aged civil servant who haunts studios of an evening, wears pale tweeds, but is otherwise a pearl of inartistic chivalry, and the scaramouch of a painter, whom she calls "charming" because he is clever, and whose absorption in art has entirely ruined him as a social being. I propose another question. Why are Bohemians so called? The answer seems easy—because they live in Bohemia. And Bohemia? Again the label produces a difficulty. ”

“ To lose caste in Bohemia is like losing one’s “face” among the Chinese and results in ostracism quite as surely.
The customs and conventions of the Bohemians, as I shall presently show, are, in truth, very different from the customs and the conventions of what is known as “good society”; so that it is not surprising that those who have only, so to speak, touched upon the frontiers of this country of the imagination, should declare it to be a land of absolute freedom and of individualistic philosophy. ”

“ Every one who confessed himself to be an adherent of his ancestor’s faith was, at first, reasoned with, then threatened, and not seldom forced to renounce his heretical ideas; or, as it was called, he was examined by Roman Catholic priests, who had to ascertain whether he was fit for Protestantism or not! It can easily be imagined that by such measures many a one was entirely alienated from our Church.
“If the want of ministers could have been supplied by Bohemians, our Reformed Church should have, most probably, become the predominant Church of Bohemia. ”

“ Men of letters, in whom the national consciousness had not died out, now began to work to awaken the same feelings in others, and in due time the fruits of their labors began to appear. Thus it was that the period of the greatest humiliation of the Bohemian language, proved to be the dawn of a new era, in which the nation may yet regain much of its former liberty and importance. ”

“ Economic conditions among the poorer classes in our cities also foster a tendency to socialism in its worst forms, because people without religious restraints easily fall into these errors. This is the more to be deplored as the Bohemians possess many natural virtues, which counteract to some extent the infidel influences that continually surround them.
We maintain that the Catholic Church always has been, and always will be the most potent factor for the moral welfare of the Bohemian people. ”

“ What is there so fascinating about the Bohemian's life? The Philistine, I fear, generally considers him an eccentric, indolent man, with no thought for the morrow, no notion of economy, no home save the place which affords him temporary shelter. ”

“ SOCIAL CONDITION AND CIVILIZATION IN BOHEMIA IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.
As early as the thirteenth century the people began to be divided into two nations, the Germans and Bohemians. Nationality.The Bohemian language was used at first by the native nobility, the clergy, and the common people; the German, in the royal cities and villages settled by German immigrants. The German settlers brought with them their own customs and habits, which differed considerably from those of the natives ”

“ What I wish to make clear is that, whereas before this date Bohemia, if it existed, was but an unconsidered fringe on the ancient student life of the Quartier Latin, after 1830 it not only received a population but became a force. For a few years it was an integral part of the larger Paris, a considerable element in public opinion and, to some extent, in social life, a factor that could not be ignored. Disturbance, however, yielded to peace, and the interests of the public shifted. The living spirit of Bohemia gradually hardened into a dead tradition. ”

“ The Bohemians, like all other people, have prejudices that make it difficult for them to see clearly values not measured by their own standard, but there can be no question but that their standard measures up well with any people in Europe. The important thing to civilization is whether they have any peculiar traits of mind or character that will be a contribution to progress. I think that the Bohemians have this in common with the other Slavs to a very marked degree and in a direction which has hitherto been entirely unrecognized, and this is the contribution to democracy. ”

“ Nay, they work for and with the Devil himself, doing the very same thing which he doth: who, without intermission opposeth the Kingdom of Christ, which consisteth only in Love. All these oppressors, if they do not turn with their whole hearts unto Christ, and minister to or serve him, must go into Hell-fire, which is fed and kept alive by nothing else but such mere Self, which they have exercised over the Poor here. ”

“ In this class {366} you may find diplomatists who could overthrow the projects of Russia if supported by the power of France. Authors, too, administrators, warriors, journalists, artists, belong to the order of Bohemians.” A less flattering notion, however, of the Bohemian is given by Xavier de Montépin, who in his “Confessions d’une Bohême” describes the adventurer thus: “A lost child of this great Paris, where all the vices have temples and all the bad passions altars and priests, the Bohemian cultivates, with dangerous skill, the worse side of human nature. ”

“ Thus the Bohemians received the first light of the Gospel; but the Crosse was the concomitant of it, according to the will of Christ, who as he did establish his Church by his own bloud; so he sprinkles it with the bloud of Martyrs, that it may be fruitfull: this is the counsell of Divine Wisedome, that we may hope in Christ, not for the things of this life. Therefore the Gospel cost the Bohemians some of their bloud. ”

“ The Roman Catholic Church, too, has published several beautiful editions of the Bible during the last fifty years, and those who have learnt to read the signs of the times, declare that: "Nobody can deny the existence of a deep religious spirit in modern Bohemia. Attempts to explain this may vary, but the facts leave no room for doubt that every day the connection between religion and life grows stronger. Religion demands attention, and the interest in it is growing." ”

“ The other is that the Bohemians and the others have retained the democratic characteristics which are common to the Slavs. There has been some influence from both.
One peculiarity of Bohemians both in America and Bohemia is the habit of criticising any of their own people who acquire any eminence or leadership in any field. One never feels free to speak with enthusiasm about a successful Bohemian lest he invite a dash of cold water. There seems to be universal suspicion of the motives or methods underlying the success. If a leader were to appear he would not get followers. ”

“ Such are some of the main features of the Bogomilian heresy, as they have come down to us, to a great extent, from the writings of their bitterest opponents. Nor will anyone marvel that these doctrines should have spread as they did among those Sclavonic races, who acted as the missionaries of the first Reformation in Western Europe. It can hardly be considered fanciful if we detect certain remarkable analogies between the belief and observances of the Bogomiles and the primitive institutions, and even the heathen religion, of the Sclaves. ”

“ I now proceed to contrast with the above, a description of what the country and nation became after a short period of Jesuit tyranny, also from the pen of a Bohemian.
‘Under the reign of Ferdinand II.,’ says Pelzel, a Roman Catholic writer, ‘the whole of the Bohemian nation was entirely changed and recast. It is scarcely possible to find in history another instance of a whole nation so much changed in a space of about fifteen years. ”

“ Our hopes are founded on the old struggles of its martyrs and confessors, as well as on recent assertions of nationality, and they are not confined to the comparatively small territory of Bohemia. With the Bohemians again in the ranks of Evangelical Protestantism a new missionary era would commence, for revived Boheniia would naturally find an outlet for missionary zeal among the kindred Slavonic races who occupy Russia and South-Eastern Europe, whose number is estimated at 90,000,000. “The harvest truly is: plenteous, but the labourers are few.” ”