ABSTRACT
Bohemia has been for a hundred years a figure of speech. Is the figure an allegory, a myth perhaps embodying a vision; or is it only a stale fiction? It began, at least in error. The French language had fathered upon earnest Bohemia the footloose, whether nomads or vagabonds, who transgressed boundaries. English literature added another error, famous because it was adopted by Shakespeare. In the Winter's Tale he gives to Bohemia a seacoast. The real Bohemia has no sea-coast. Neither has the metaphorical Bohemia, that fabulous home of those who will have no home. What have nomads in vans or tents or garrets to do with harbors? A port ends the voyage. Bohemians hate to lay a course. The metaphor holds for a port as a way out. Women especially, when they yield to gypsy yearnings, find that the land of homelessness has no sea-coast. They cannot readily sail away; and the men who welcomed them as adventurers cannot help them as travellers. Whether or not this ought to be so, it is so. But the difficulty of escaping from escape is dangerous enough for men 308 too. For either women or men the entry into Bohemia is without passport, and the sojourn at their own risk. Men are still permitted by society to risk more or longer; but they too find that risk prolonged is only habit after all. For him who cannot sail away, as for her, there is no sea-coast.
