Miss Bayle’s Romance.

Messrs. Henry Holt & Co. send us a circular announcing that they are upon the eve of publishing a volume entitled “Miss Bayle’s Romance,” the same recounting the exploits of “a Miss Bayle and her family—all of Chicago—among the effete aristocracy of the Old World.” When Eastern publishers say “the Old World,” they mean Europe; although there are reasons for suspecting, that, in point of fact, Europe is no older than any other part of the globe. “This novel,” the circular continues, “which is reported to be the work of a hand well known in literature, has been considered important enough to be the subject of some cablegrams to the press.” Now, if “Miss Bayle’s Romance” were the work of a Chicago littérateur, we would not be in any harrowing doubt as to the authorship. Chicago littérateurs deal in a refreshingly candid and open-handed way: in all our voluminous city directory, there is no person (male or female) of the name of Anon. “A hand well known in literature” is an ambiguous phrase,—that is to say, it is ambiguous in the national, broad sense; but here in Chicago, “a hand well known in literature” is the horny, warty, but honest hand, which, after years of patient toil at skinning cattle, or at boiling lard, or at cleaning pork, has amassed a competence sufficient to admit 169of its master’s triumphant reception into the crême de la crême of Chicago culture. We fancy that this “Miss Bayle” is a myth, and that her “romance” is simply the invention of some envenomed Eastern scribbler who has become tainted with the leprosy of Eastern culture, which envies Chicago her output of pork, beef, wheat, lard, and other fruits of a refined civilization.

Col. Alva Eugene Davis, the handsome and talented proprietor of “The Current,” says that the Eastern littérateurs are a very snobbish set. He called on the business editor of “The Century” magazine while he was in New York, and had some trouble in identifying himself. “The Current,” “The Current,” repeated “The Century” business-manager with a puzzled expression on his literary countenance. “Really, I cannot locate that paper—pray tell me where is it published?” Of course Col. Davis got as hot as a cooking-stove right away. “Well, if you don’t know where ‘The Current’ is published, you must be a —— of a littérateur,” said he; and then he added, “And you must be a d——d queer sort of a business-manager too, for you’ve been advertising in ‘The Current’ for the last two years.” “The Century” man thought this was such a good joke, that he took Col. Davis up into the editorial department, and introduced him to the young reporters who write the war reminiscences.

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