I left the bay without having been able to determine
the character, the kind, of its denizens.
I take it there is a strong tincture of Bohemianism in them. Mr.
Desmond MacCarthy, of whose judgment I am always trustful, has said
that the hallmark of Bohemianism is a tendency to use things for
purposes to which they are not adapted. You are a Bohemian, says Mr.
MacCarthy, if you would gladly use a razor for buttering your toast at
breakfast, and you aren't if you wouldn't. I think he would agree that
the choice of a home is a surer index than any fleeting action,
however strange, and that really the best-certified Bohemians are they
who choose to reside in railway-cars on stilts. But--why particularly
railway-cars? That is a difficult question. A possible answer is that
the Bohemian, as tending always to nomady, feels that the least
uncongenial way of settling down is to stow himself into a thing
fashioned for darting hither and thither. Yet no, this answer won't
do. It is ruled out by the law I laid down in my first paragraph.
There's nothing sadder to eye or heart than a very mobile thing made
immovable.
No house, especially if you are by way of being nomadic, can be so ill
to live in as one that in its heyday went gadding all over the place.
And, on the other hand, what house more eligible than one that can
gad? I myself am not restless, and am fond of comfort: I should not
care to live in a caravan.
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