respectable of men, and yet a true Bohemian. And the test is
this: a Bohemian, for as poor as he may be, is always open-handed to his
friends; he knows what he can do with money and how he can do without
it, a far rarer and more useful knowledge; he has had less, and
continued to live in some contentment; and hence he cares not to keep
more, and shares his sovereign or his shilling with a friend. The poor,
if they are generous, are Bohemian in virtue of their birth. Do you know
where beggars go? Not to the great houses where people sit dazed among
their thousands, but to the doors of poor men who have seen the world;
and it was the widow who had only two mites, who cast half her fortune
into the treasury.

But a young man who elects to save on dress or on lodging, or who in any
way falls out of the level of expenditure which is common to his level
in society, falls out of society altogether. I suppose the young man to
have chosen his career on honourable principles; he finds his talents
and instincts can be best contented in a certain pursuit; in a certain
industry, he is sure that he is serving mankind with a healthy and
becoming service; and he is not sure that he would be doing so, or doing
so equally well, in any other industry within his reach. Then that is
his true sphere in life; not the one in which he was born to his father,
but the one which is proper to his talents and instincts. And suppose he
does fall out of society, is that a cause of sorrow? Is your heart so
dead that you prefer the recognition of many to the love of a few? Do
you think society loves you? Put it to the proof. Decline in material
expenditure, and you will find they care no more for you than for the
Khan of Tartary. You will lose no friends. If you had any, you will keep
them. Only those who were friends to your coat and equipage will
disappear; the smiling faces will disappear as by enchantment; but the
kind hearts will remain steadfastly kind. Are you so lost, are you so
dead, are you so little sure of your own soul and your own footing upon
solid fact, that you prefer before goodness and happiness the
countenance of sundry diners-out, who will flee from you at a report of
ruin, who will drop you with insult at a shadow of disgrace, who do not
know you and do not care to know you but by sight, and whom you in your
turn neither know nor care to know in a more human manner? Is it not the
principle of society, openly avowed, that friendship