New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1905-05-14

1917 in which year Mr.. Mitchell also began to
study law But his health worrying him he
again went to Europe, and was in the Paris out
breaks of 1915 which he described in his next
volume, THE Battle Summer" published the
next year.
Then came the years in ELK Marvers" life
which have probably given him his most lasting
reputation, the years of the "Reveries of
Bachelor and Dream Life" He had come
back to NewYork by that time and engaged in
the editOrship of a weekly paper of a humor-
ously satirical nature, which was famous in it's
day, The Lorgnette." In this periodical, which
was carried anonymously, Mr.. Mitchell
amused himself and New-York people by a Sc
ries of telling, but good natured, satires the
fashionable foibles of the day. To his own con-
trbutions to this paper Mr.. Mitchell signed his
first nom de plume, John Tmon.
Still DESTROYS of retirement Mr.. Mitchell then
published his "Reveries of a Bachelor" a small
volume of the freside study type, which at once
became widely popular, and which is still being
printed for each new generation of readers In
the first preface to it "Ik Marvel" as he then
dubbed himself, has this to say about what he
had written: Il have, moreover, a kindly feel
Ing for these reveries from their very private
character; they consist mainly of Just such
WITNESSES and reflections a great many
brother bachelors are apt to indulge in, but
which they are too cautious or too prudent to
lay before the world AS l have in this matter
shown a frankness and naTvet6 which are UNI
usual. l shall ask a corresponding frankness in
my reader; and 1 can assure him safely that this
is eminently of those books which were
never intended for publication"
When the second edition of the "Reveries''
was issued, Mr., Mitchell says that he began TO
revise the book, and then, because revision
would have completely changed it, left it as it
was. He once wrote as to this: 1.-The children
who sat for my pictures are grown; the boys
that l watched at their game of taw, and who
clapped their hands gleefully at a good shot
buttoned into natty blue frocks and wear
little lace bordered bands upon their shoulders;
and over and over, 1 read my morning paper
1 am brought to a sudden pause and a strange
electric current thrills me. l come upon their
boy names printed in the dead roll of the war
The girls who the charming white pima
fores and wild tangle of laxen curls have
now Melted up all those clustering tresses into
a stately pompadour headdress: and they rus
tie past me in silks and do not know me-"
AS to the way in which the "Reveries' came
to be published, Mr.. Mitchell says that the
weekly papers in THE LOrgnette" were printed
In two small volumes by a small bookseller up
Broadway, lat the centre of what was then the
fashionable shopping region" Their anonymous
character produced much discussion and the
bookseller kept a diary of the remarks made
upon it by the fashionable people who bought it
over his dusty counter, "a diary" says Mr..
Mitchell, which is still in of my pigeon
holes, scored with underlinings and radiant
with notable New-York names of thirty years
since" now half a century gone To divert
growing suspicion to the authorship, Mr.
Mitchell then published under his own name the
first "Revere'' of the future volume. and which
came out in THE Southern Literary Messen-
ger" then a leading literary periodical. printed
in Richmond This first "Reverie" was reprinted
in of the first issues of "Harper's New
Monthly" then appearing. Mr. Fields, of the
Boston house of Ticknor & Fields, declined the
ensuing chapters. and "Scribner's" then pub