THIS volume is written to show the life of the students in the Paris of to-day. It has an additional interest in opening to inspection certain phases of Bohemian life in Paris that are shared both by the students and the public, but that are generally unfamiliar to visitors to that wonderful city, and even to a very large part of the city's population itself. It depicts the under-side of such life as the students find,—the loose, unconventional life of the humbler strugglers in literature and art, with no attempt to spare its salient features, its poverty and picturesqueness, and its lack of adherence to generally accepted standards of morals and conduct.

As is told in the article describing that incomparably brilliant spectacle, the ball of the Four Arts, extreme care is taken to exclude the public and admit only artists and students, all of whom must be properly accredited and fully identified. It is well understood that such a spectacle would not be suitable for any but artists and students. It is given solely for their benefit, and with the high aim, fully justified by the experience of the masters who direct the students, that the event, with its marvellous brilliancy, its splendid artistic effects, and its freedom and abandon, has a stimulating and broadening effect of the greatest value to art. The artists and students see in these annual spectacles only grace, beauty, and majesty; their training in the studios, where they learn to regard models merely as tools of their craft, fits them, and them alone, for the wholesome enjoyment of the great ball.

It is a student that presents the insight which this volume gives into the life of the students and other Bohemians of Paris. It is set forth with the frankness of a student. Coming from such a source, and having such treatment, it will have a special charm and value for the wise.

The students are the pets of Paris. They lend to the city a picturesqueness that no other city enjoys. So long as they avoid riots aimed at a government that may now and then offend their sense of right, their ways of living, their escapades, their noisy and joyous manifestations of healthy young animal life, are good-naturedly overlooked. Underneath such a life there lies, concealed from casual view, another life that they lead,—one of hard work, of hope, of aspiration, and often of pinching poverty and cruel self-denial. The stress upon them, of many kinds, is great. The utter absence of an effort to reorganize their lives upon conventional lines is from a philosophical belief that if they fail to pass unscathed through it all, they lack the fine, strong metal from which worthy artists are made.

The stranger in Paris will here find opened to him places in which he may study for himself the Bohemian life of the city in all its careless disregard of conventions. The cafÉs, cabarets, and dance-halls herein described and illustrated have a charm that wholesome, well-balanced minds will enjoy. The drawings for the illustrations were all made from the actual scenes that they depict; they partake of the engaging frankness of the text and of its purpose to show Bohemian life in the Paris of to-day without any effort at concealment.

W. C. M.

BOHEMIAN PARIS