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Scientific Dry Farming

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The Poet Directing the Harvesting of Hay. Herman Whitaker to the Extreme Right

Joaquin Miller and His Books

By Henry Meade Bland

(Author of "A Song of Autumn," and "In Yosemite.")
Copyright, 1919, by Henry Meade Bland. All rights reserved.

T

HERE is, for anyone fighting a battle for success, a profound lesson in perseverance and patience, in the struggle of the poet, Joaquin Miller, from the obscurity of a mining camp to the finished and famous stanzas of "Columbus"; from the scanty beginnings of his striking genius to the completion of his score and a half volumes: for it must be remembered that while his shelf of volumes contains many reprints, it

was his custom to laboriously rewrite and revise what he republished. The story of this work is a marvel of achievement.

Joaquin began his first serious attempt in Mow-o-wa valley on the sunny south slope of Shasta. He had built a cabin on land given him by the Shasta chief whom he sometimes calls in his stories Warotetot, sometimes Blackfoot. It was during a two weeks' stay in this

cabin, all alone in the dead of winter, that he began with his pen. What did he write? Probably no one will ever know.

It is certain that the next time he tried his genius on paper it was under the instruction of his father, after coming back from Central America to Oregon by way of San Francisco. At this time he wrote parts of the "Arizonian," the most important poem of "Pacific Poems" which was first printed in England at his own expense.

Before publishing "Pacific Poems" he had in Oregon published "Specimens," a thin book containing two long productions "Lou Ellah" and "Shadows," both on themes which were prophetic of material in "Songs of the Sierras."

A second book "Joaquin et al.," was brought out in Portland, Oregon, by S. J. McCormick. This contained one hundred and twenty-four pages, while "Specimens," though bound more pretentiously in leather, was not half the size.

It was "Joaquin et al.," that the poet carried under his arm when early in 1870 he arrived in San Francisco and confronted the coterie of writers who controlled the editorial policy of the "Overland Monthly." Bret Harte, the Editor-in-chief, wrote a burning unfavorable review, which Ina Coolbrith, author of the exquisite "In Blossom Time," persuaded him not to publish. He turned the task of a notice of to her, and this is what appeared concerning Miller in the "Overland" for January, 1870.

"If he (the poet), is to be detected, like the Prince in the Arabian Nights, from a habit of putting pepper in his cream tarts, we should say his name was Miller, and he lived in Oregon.

"But, if we dared to answer the unasked and unimportant question which of the three (there were three different volumes of poetry touched upon in the same notice), wrote what might be reasonably called poetry, we should Miller; with, perhaps, the impertinent addition that he gave the promise of writing much more vigorous local poetry than has yet been written in California. For when we have overlooked the du

say

bious taste of subject and title, and have stripped away the husk of some crudities, we find in "Joaquin et al.," the true poetic instinct, with a natural felicity of diction and a dramatic vigor that are good in performance and yet better in promise (i. e. Miller is good from the top of his head up.) Of course, at present, Mr. Miller is not entirely easy in harness, but is given to pawing and curveting; and at such times his neck is clothed with thunder" (note the figure) "and the glory of his nostrils is terrible. But his passion is truthful, and his figures flow rather from his perception than his sentiment. And when instead of contenting himself with such easy epithets as 'snow-clad,' as applied to the Sierras, he intimates that Dian had on the mountain line 'hung all her linen out to dry' the picture is laughable, but striking."

This was all the recognition that Bret Harte, the distinguished arbiter of Western taste could offer the aspiring Oregonian. With his usual attitude of humility toward his critics, and with gratitude for small favors, Miller wrote his parents he was off for New York, and thus for the time brushed the golden mists of San Francisco from his eyes.

And so the San Francisco critics had missed "Is it Worth While?" which continues to live; and there was the striking prophecy concerning San Francisco, which was also overlooked in the search for something to ridicule:

IS IT WORTH WHILE?

Is it worth while that we jostle a brother Bearing his load on the rough road of life?

Is it worth while that we jeer at each other

In blackness of heart?-that we war to the knife?

God pity us all in our pitiful strife.

God pity us all as we jostle each other; God pity us all for the triumphs we feel

When a fellow goes down; poor, heartbroken brother,

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