Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1908-12-23
GLIMPSES OF TX MARVEL.
Don-'d G. Mitchell, Who Gained Fame
Through Two Wondrous Books.


Donald Grant Mitchell, better known
by his nom de plume, TX Marvel,
who recently died at Edgewood, his
country home near New Haven, will
have an enduring place in American
literature. More than half a century
ago his "Reveries of a Bachelor" and
Dream Life had touched a sympa-
thetic chord in two continents and
many of the now dead American writ
ers had pronounced his style as I'M
rivaled among his contemporaries.
His life and his writings were always
in sympathy with all that was pure
and beautiful in the world, and recent
visitors to his Edgewood farm found
him at the age of eighty-six the same
sweet natured man of many years ago.
Mr.. Mitchell was born in Norwich,
Conn.,, April II, 1922, his father then
having been Congregational clergy
man of that place. He was graduated
from Yale and began his literary work
with a series of letters from Europe
for the Albany Cultivator, published in
1874. Following this first effort came
another series of letters from France,
under the title of "Fresh Gleanings,"
which attracted some attention.
Returning to America, he studied
law in New York city, but found that
distasteful to him and again returned
to France, being in that country dur
ing the formation of the republic. The
stirring scenes of the period gave him
the impressions for '"The Battle Sum-
mer," which was his first book of any
Importance.
After that he wrote ''The Lorgnette"
and several other short stories. which
first appeared in the Southern Liter
airy Messenger 1.-The Reveries of q
Bachelor" appeared in 1850 and
Dream Life" the following year.
These created a particularly favorable
impression and gained for him the
warm friendship of Longfellow,
Holmes, Lowell Poe and other writer's
of that period.
In 1853 he went as consul to Venice,
but returned to the United States after
one year and purchased the 200 acre
farm near New Haven, where he after
ward remained All of his later books
were written there. Among the best
known of his recent works were "Wet
Days at Edgewood," Rural Studies"
English Lands, Letters and Kings"
and american Lands and Letters"
He wrote very little during the last
twenty-five years and passed the even
ing of his days surrounded by his kin
and his books.
"Is it lonely in my garden of sum-
mers evening? Have the little patter-
ing feet gone their ways-tO bed?
Then / people the gooseberry alley
with Dr. Primrose and his daughters,
Sophia and Olivia. Squire Burchell
comes and sits upon the bench with
me under the arbor as l smoke my
pipe. How shall we measure our in
debtedness to such pleasant books that
people our solitude so many years
after they are written? Oliver Gold
smith, l thank you. Bob Crown,
thank YOU"
So TX Marvel wrote in "My Farm at
Edgewood" in 1868. In spirit and af-
IGcllOu lie IICNCl SlCW OAOs LII 1OOO
he married Mary F. Pringle of Charles
ton, S. c., and two sons and five
daughters were born to them.
Mr.. Mitchell was a great believer IN
walking, for it saved his life. When
he was a young man and his friends
prophesied that he would early be-
come a victim to consumption, which
was hereditary in the Mitchell family,
he spent two years tramping over Eu-
rope. In England alone he Travelled
600 miles on foot, stopping at night at
the country inns and proceeding again
on his way the next morning. The or
binary traveller visits only the cities.
Mr. Mitchell reversed the custom, and
he was not wholly unwise in doing it.
Those cross country tramps he kept up
even in his later years.
For five years past his friends had
been conscious that his physical health
was failing very rapidly, but mentally
he remained as alert and cheerful as
ever.