DOI article:
Harland, Henry: The bohemian girl
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21805#0025
By Henry Harland 21
he jested, no one laughed more promptly or more heartily than
she. In those days I was perpetually trying to write fiction ; and
Old Childe was my inveterate hero. I forget in how many
ineffectual manuscripts, under what various dread disguises, he
was afterwards reduced to ashes ; I am afraid, in one case, a
scandalous distortion of him got abroad in print. Publishers are
sometimes ill-advised ; and'thus the indiscretions of ouryouth may
become the confusions of our age. The thing was in three
volumes, and called itself a novel ; and of course the fatuous
author had to make a bad business worse by presenting a copy to
his victim. I shall never forget the look Nina gave me when I
asked her if she had read it ; I grow hot even now as I recall it.
I had waited and waited, expecting her compliments ; and at last
I could wait no longer, and so asked her ; and she answered me
with a look ! It was weeks, I am not sure it wasn’t months,
before she took me back to her good graces. But Old Childe
was magnanimous ; he sent me a little pencil-drawing of his
head, inscribed in the corner, “To Frankenstein from his
Monster.”
V
It was a queer life for a girl to live, that happy-go-lucky life of
the Latin Quarter, lawless and unpremeditated, with a cafe for her
school-room, and none but men for comrades ; but Nina liked it ;
and her father had a theory in his madness. He was a Bohemian,
not in practice only, but in principle ; he preached Bohemianism
as the most rational manner of existence, maintaining that it
developed what was intrinsic and authentic in one’s character,
saved one from the artificial, and brought one into immediate
contact
he jested, no one laughed more promptly or more heartily than
she. In those days I was perpetually trying to write fiction ; and
Old Childe was my inveterate hero. I forget in how many
ineffectual manuscripts, under what various dread disguises, he
was afterwards reduced to ashes ; I am afraid, in one case, a
scandalous distortion of him got abroad in print. Publishers are
sometimes ill-advised ; and'thus the indiscretions of ouryouth may
become the confusions of our age. The thing was in three
volumes, and called itself a novel ; and of course the fatuous
author had to make a bad business worse by presenting a copy to
his victim. I shall never forget the look Nina gave me when I
asked her if she had read it ; I grow hot even now as I recall it.
I had waited and waited, expecting her compliments ; and at last
I could wait no longer, and so asked her ; and she answered me
with a look ! It was weeks, I am not sure it wasn’t months,
before she took me back to her good graces. But Old Childe
was magnanimous ; he sent me a little pencil-drawing of his
head, inscribed in the corner, “To Frankenstein from his
Monster.”
V
It was a queer life for a girl to live, that happy-go-lucky life of
the Latin Quarter, lawless and unpremeditated, with a cafe for her
school-room, and none but men for comrades ; but Nina liked it ;
and her father had a theory in his madness. He was a Bohemian,
not in practice only, but in principle ; he preached Bohemianism
as the most rational manner of existence, maintaining that it
developed what was intrinsic and authentic in one’s character,
saved one from the artificial, and brought one into immediate
contact