The serious Bohemia of the _Buveurs d'Eau_ (the devotees of High Art who carry their devotion to the point of contemning all "commission" work whatsoever) may require more effort, or more special predestination, to get into full sympathy with it. The thing is noble; but it is nobility _party per_ a very thin _pale_ with and from silliness; and the Devil's Advocate has no very hard task in suggesting that it is not even nobility at all, but a compound of idleness and affectation.[288] With rare exceptions, the greatest men of art and letters have never disdained, though they might not love, what one of them called "honest journey-work in default of better"; and when those exceptions come to be examined--as in the leading English cases of Milton[289] and Wordsworth--you generally find that the persons concerned never really felt the pinch of necessity. However, Murger makes the best of his Lazare and the rest of them; and his power over pathos, which is certainly not small, assists him as much here as it does _more_ than assist him--as it practically carries him through--in other stories such as _Le Manchon de Francine_ and _La Biographie d'un Inconnu_. And, moreover, he can use all these means and more in handfuls of little things--some mere _bleuettes_ (as the French call them)--_Comment on Devient Coloriste_, _Le Victime du Bonheur_, _La Fleur Bretonne_, _Le Fauteuil Enchante_, _Les Premieres Amours du Jeune Bleuet_. With such high praise still allotted to an author, it may seem unfair not to give him more room; and I should certainly have done so if I had not had the other treatment to refer to. Since that existed, as in the similar cases of Sandeau, Bernard, and perhaps one or two more, it seemed to me that space, becoming more and more valuable, might be economised, especially as, in his case and theirs, there is nothing extraordinary to interest, nothing difficult to discuss. _Tolle_, _lege_ is the suitable word for all three, and no fit person who obeys will regret his obedience. * * * * * [Sidenote: Reybaud--_Jerome Paturot_, and Thackeray on its earlier part.]