Giant Hours With Poet Preachers | Page 9

HEAVEN, AND GOD

It was a warm, sunny May California day; and the day stands out, even
above California days. A climb up the Piedmont hills back of Oakland,
California, brought us to "The Heights," the unique home of Joaquin
Miller, poet of the West and poet of the world.
A visit to the homes of the New England poets is always interesting
because of historic and literary associations, but none of them has the
touch of the unique personality of Miller.
Most people interested in things literary know that Miller, with a great
desire to emphasize the freedom of the individual, built a half dozen
separate houses, one for himself, one for his wife, one for his daughter
Juanita, several for guests from all over the world who were always
visiting him, and a little chapel. Literary men from every nation on the
planet visited Miller at "The Heights." Most people interested knew
also that Miller, with his own hands, had built monuments of stone to
Fremont, the explorer, to Moses, and to Browning. There was also a
granite funeral pyre for himself, within sight of the little "God's Acre,"
in which he had buried some eighteen or twenty outcasts and derelicts
of earth who had no other plot to call their own in which to take their
last long sleep.
We expected to find this strange group of buildings deserted, but after
inspecting the chapel, which was modeled after Newstead Abbey, and
after rambling through the old-fashioned garden that Miller himself had
planted--a garden with a perfect riot of colors--suddenly a little woman
with a sweet face walked up to us out of the bushes and said, "Are you
lovers of the poet?"
I humbly replied that we were. Then she said: "I am Mrs. Miller, and
you are welcome. When you have looked around, come into Mr.
Miller's own room and be refreshed. After that I will read to you from
his writings."
It sounded stagey at first, but the more we knew of this sweet-faced
widow of the poet the less we found about her that was not simple and
sweet and natural.
After wandering around, through the fascinating paths, under the great
cross of a thousand pine trees, among the roses, and flowers that he had
planted with his own hands, we came at last to the little house that Mrs.
Miller had called "The poet's own room," and there were we refreshed
with cool lemonade and cakes. In the littleness of my soul I wondered

when we were to pay for these favors, but the longer we remained the
more was I shamed as I saw that this hospitality was just the natural
expression of a woman, and a beautiful daughter's desire to extend the
hospitality of the dead poet himself, to any who loved his writings.
There was the bed on which Miller lay for months writing many of his
greatest poems, including the famous "Columbus." There was his
picturesque sombrero, still hanging where he had put it last on the post
of the great bed. His pen was at hand; his writing pad, his chair, his
great fur coat, his handkerchief of many colors which in life he always
wore about his neck; his great heavy, high-topped boots. And it was
sunset.
Then Mrs. Miller began to read. As the slanting rays of as crimson a
sunset as God ever painted were falling through the great cross of pine
trees, Mrs. Miller's dramatic, sweet, sympathetic voice interpreted his
poems for us. I sat on the bed from which Miller had, just a few months
previous to that, heard the great call. The others sat in his great rockers.
Mrs. Miller stood as she read. I am sure that "Columbus" will never be
lifted into the sublime as it was when she read it that late May
afternoon, with its famous, and thrilling phrase "Sail on! Sail on! And
on! And on!"
A STUDY OF HOME
I had thought before hearing Mrs. Miller read "The Greatest Battle that
Ever was Fought" that I had caught all the subtle meanings of it, but
after her reading that great tribute to womanhood I knew that I had
never dreamed the half of its inner meaning:
"The greatest battle that ever was fought--- Shall I tell you where and
when? On the maps of the world you will find it not: It was fought by
the Mothers of Men.
"Not with cannon or battle shot, With sword or nobler pen; Not with
eloquent word or thought From the wonderful minds of men;
"But deep in a walled up woman's heart; A woman that would not yield;
But bravely and patiently bore her part; Lo! there is that battlefield.
"No marshaling troops, no bivouac song, No banner to gleam