DOI article:
Harland, Henry: The bohemian girl
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21805#0026
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The Bohemian Girl
contact with the realities of the world ; and he protested he could
see no reason why a human being should be “ cloistered and
contracted ” because of her sex. cc What would not hurt my son,
if I had one, will not hurt my daughter. It will make a man of
her—without making her the less a woman.” So he took her
with him to the Cafe Bleu, and talked in her presence quite as
freely as he might have talked had she been absent. As, in the
greater number of his theological, political, and social convictions,
he was exceedingly unorthodox, she heard a good deal, no doubt,
that most of us would scarcely consider edifying for our daughters’
ears ; but he had his System, he knew what he was about. u The
question whether you can touch pitch and remain undefiled,” he
said, cc depends altogether upon the spirit in which you approach
it. The realities of the world, the realities of life, the real things
of God’s universe—what have we eyes for, if not to envisage
them ? Do so fearlessly, honestly, with a clean heart, and, man
or woman, you can only be the better for it.” Perhaps his
System was a shade too simple, a shade too obvious, for this
complicated planet ; but he held to it in all sincerity. It was in
pursuance of the same System, I daresay, that he taught Nina to
fence, and to read Latin and Greek, as well as to play the piano,
and turn an Omelette. She could ply a foil against the best
of us.
And then, quite suddenly, he died.
I think it was in March, or April ; anyhow, it was a premature
spring-like day, and he had left off his overcoat. That evening
he went to the Odeon, and when, after the play, he joined us for
supper at the Bleu, he said he thought he had caught a cold, and
ordered hot grog. The next day he did not turn up at all ; so
several of us, after dinner, presented ourselves at his lodgings in
Montparnasse. We found him in bed, with Nina reading to him.
He
The Bohemian Girl
contact with the realities of the world ; and he protested he could
see no reason why a human being should be “ cloistered and
contracted ” because of her sex. cc What would not hurt my son,
if I had one, will not hurt my daughter. It will make a man of
her—without making her the less a woman.” So he took her
with him to the Cafe Bleu, and talked in her presence quite as
freely as he might have talked had she been absent. As, in the
greater number of his theological, political, and social convictions,
he was exceedingly unorthodox, she heard a good deal, no doubt,
that most of us would scarcely consider edifying for our daughters’
ears ; but he had his System, he knew what he was about. u The
question whether you can touch pitch and remain undefiled,” he
said, cc depends altogether upon the spirit in which you approach
it. The realities of the world, the realities of life, the real things
of God’s universe—what have we eyes for, if not to envisage
them ? Do so fearlessly, honestly, with a clean heart, and, man
or woman, you can only be the better for it.” Perhaps his
System was a shade too simple, a shade too obvious, for this
complicated planet ; but he held to it in all sincerity. It was in
pursuance of the same System, I daresay, that he taught Nina to
fence, and to read Latin and Greek, as well as to play the piano,
and turn an Omelette. She could ply a foil against the best
of us.
And then, quite suddenly, he died.
I think it was in March, or April ; anyhow, it was a premature
spring-like day, and he had left off his overcoat. That evening
he went to the Odeon, and when, after the play, he joined us for
supper at the Bleu, he said he thought he had caught a cold, and
ordered hot grog. The next day he did not turn up at all ; so
several of us, after dinner, presented ourselves at his lodgings in
Montparnasse. We found him in bed, with Nina reading to him.
He