III

JOAQUIN MILLER

I

I MUST go back to my nineteenth year to write on Joaquin Miller from the beginning. I heard his name first, I distinctly remember, from my fellow-countryman, then a student at Stanford, who dropped into the dirty kitchen of Menlo Park Hotel (where I was temporarily employed as a dish-washer) to cheer me up and also to have a secret bit of pie. The poet's life amid the roses, quite high above the cities and people (my friend told me as best he could what he knew about him), made me sadder when I compared it with my life, in which my fingers grew all swollen, disfigured from using soda in the dish-water; and it was about the time that I began to read English poetry. But Joaquin Miller was dismissed from my mind till five or six months later, when I found myself again in San Francisco and cast my lot with the office of the Soko Shimbun, a Japanese newspaper, for the second time; when I one day found Miller's name in

Webster's Dictionary, my reverence toward him doubled at once. I do not remember now to whom it was that I told of my great despair of American life; surely it was he that suggested to me the home of Joaquin Miller, the "Heights" he called the place, at the back hill of Oakland, when I wished to find some place to sleep and read without doing much manual work. I was told by him to be sure of Miller's great love of Japan and the Japanese, and above all, of his eccentric way of living; and he said further, I believe, that he would doubtless gladly let me live with him since some young Japanese had already such an experience before. When I decided to make my call on him, I took all the books that I had, six or seven, excepting a copy of Poe's poems as I was already his admirer, to a certain second-hand bookshop to raise my travelling expense.

The scene of my first meeting with Miller floats most clearly, most sweetly before my eyes as if it were only yesterday, although it is now a matter of almost twenty years ago. I know how I trembled when I stepped on the somehow unsafe narrow wooden path or bridge at the entrance, leading me directly to his ridiculously small cottage; I believe I should have run away from the sudden failing

of my courage (as I said before I was not yet then fully nineteen) if a young girl, a Mexican or half Negress, Miss Alice as I found afterward (we were good friends during my stay at the "Heights"), who had just stepped out of the cottage, had not encouraged me with her friendly smile. Joaquin Miller, who at once reminded me of my imaginary picture of childhood days for a certain Tengu or Mountain Elf with red long nose, whose supernatural power made Yoshitsune Minamoto a great swordsman in Japanese legend, stretched out his hand from the bed (he lived practically in a cottage of one room) when he saw me entering. I thought how romantically impressive he looked. It was his habit, as I soon found out, to "loaf and invite his own soul" lying in bed the whole forenoon; a silken skullcap which he wore gave him the most interesting touch of an older age. When I told him of my desire in climbing up the hill, he exclaimed "Welcome! Welcome!" Then he wished me to accompany him to his old mother's to dine together, when Miss Alice (a sweet soul who, it is said, died some years ago somewhere in Southern America) came and announced dinner. On our way to Mrs. Miller's cottage, which stood some one hundred yards up the hill, Joaquin Miller picked abundantly the