We knew one of these amateur Bohemians who, after having remained three years in Bohemia and quarrelled with his family, died one morning, and was taken to the common grave in a pauper's hearse.

He had ten thousand francs a year.
It is needless to say that these Bohemians have nothing whatever in common with art, and that they are the most obscure amongst the least known of ignored Bohemia.
We now come to the real Bohemia, to that which forms, in part, the subject of this book.

Those who compose it are really amongst those called by art, and have the chance of being also amongst its elect.

This Bohemia, like the others, bristles with perils, two abysses flank it on either side--poverty and doubt.

But between these two gulfs there is at least a road leading to a goal which the Bohemians can see with their eyes, pending the time when they shall touch it with their hand.
It is official Bohemia so-called because those who form part of it have publicly proved their existence, have signalised their presence in the world elsewhere than on a census list, have, to employ one of their own expressions, "their name in the bill," who are known in the literary and artistic market, and whose products, bearing their stamp, are current there, at moderate rates it is true.
To arrive at their goal, which is a settled one, all roads serve, and the Bohemians know how to profit by even the accidents of the route.
Rain or dust, cloud or sunshine, nothing checks these bold adventurers, whose sins are backed by virtue.