Joaquin Miller [pp. 165-170]

yO 7AQUIN MILLER.
the four walls of home her fondest past,
her most attractive future, her country,
her world; to whom the cradle of liberty
is not one-half as dear as is the cradle
where her baby sleeps, and to whom a
hundred Declarations of Independence
are not half so potent as a single fresh
declaration of love from the father of her
first-born." Joy will be tangled in the
meshes of such a household, and there
will be no escaping it. The life of such
a woman is visible theology. This is an
exalted consecration, that wreaths womanhood with a halo that is luminous!
The simple possession of such capabilities prophesies their design and use;
and, estimating the results, we are forced
to believe that the ballot promises no
such tranquil, propitious, and re-assuring
heights of female power and influence.
JOAQUIN MILLER.
A BOUT the year I838, Heulings in the Far West could have no oppor Miller, father of CINCINNATUS tunities for education.
HEINE MILLER, went into the Wabash In I85I his parents emigrated to Oredistrict of Indiana with his wife, for the gon, by the overland route-a journey of
purpose of making a home. At that time five months, across the deserts, and over
Indiana was on the frontier line of set- the mountains and valleys that stretched
tlements, and the position of a settler in away from the Missouri almnost two thouthat region was that of a picket at the sand miles to the west, without the haboutpost of civilization. Thirty-four years itation of a civilized man. It is probable
seems a short period in the life of a great that this journey, bringing under young
nation, and it is a short period-a mere Miller's observation, in panoramic sucmoment-in the history of past centu- cession, such infinite variety, beauty, and
ries. But in the light of the achievements magnificence of natural scenery, conof the last three decades in the United tributed much to produce that familiarity
States-the immense increase of popu- with Nature, which forms so remarkable
lation and wealth, the boundless wilder- a feature in his poems. For it is not
ness of mountain and plain reclaimed possible that a mind, possessing such
and peopled, the Western Continent wonderful susceptibilities in this direcspanned by a railway, and the commerce tion as he has displayed, could fail to be
of the Eastern forced into new channels, impressed strongly and permanently by
and a vast and complicated system of such scenes, presented even in early
civilization created, with a literature pe- boyhood.
culiarly its own-in the light of these In his childhood Miller was a dreamfacts, the life of a single generation of er-absent-minded, taking no interest in
men is indeed a long time. A day of the sports of his associates, and exhibitthe nineteenth century is as a thousand ing a remarkable penchant for asking
years. questions that his elders could not an Taking his place thus in the van of swer. But beyond this he discovered
the westward march of empire, Mr. Mil- no unusual characteristics; was only
ler opened up the farm, and built the log- very "old-fashioned," as the old nurse
cabin, where, on the ioth day of Novem- was wont to say of little Paul. And even
ber, I84I, the poet was born. It is this peculiarity was attributed to undue
scarcely necessary to mention, that at timidity and sensitiveness: that shrinkthat time the child of a pioneer farmer ing diffidence, so plainly observable in
I872.]