# History of Oregon Literature/Chapter 15

CHAPTER 15
Minnie Myrtle Miller
Minnie Myrtle Miller, though one called upon to make the sacrifice, was creative enough in her attitude to grant in her distress that literature is worth any heavy price that might have to be paid for it. "Good sometimes comes of evil," she said. "Our separation and sorrows produced the poems of 'Myrrh' and 'Even So'." In all her unhappy actions and public display of her troubles she was a person of three conflicting moods: a wife out of favor; a tender and unselfish woman truly wishing her husband to be one of the great poets of the world; a poet herself, with a feeling of harsh frustration that her almost equal talents should be choked and smothered by uncontrollable circumstances, while his through ruthless doffing of responsibility should flower and grow.
The latter mood, a kind of professional jealousy, was encouraged by her women friends and by some of the Oregon newspapers, like the Albany Democrat previously quoted. In keeping with this opinion, Mrs. Frances Fuller Victor said of her:
   Miller married a woman who as a lyrical poet was fully his equal; but while he went forth free from their brief wedded life to challenge the plaudits of the world, she sank beneath the blight of poverty, and the weight of woman's inability to grapple with the human throng which surges over and treads down those that faint by the way; therefore, ​Minnie Myrtle Miller, still in the prime of her powers, passed to the silent land.
Those who knew Joaquin Miller and his wife have pretty generally fostered the belief that she was almost as good a poet as he was. During the last 50 years she has retained this reputation through such heritage of praise from old admirers and without the actual confirmation of her poetry. Most of the Oregon libraries have had nothing at all by her, and even the large libraries have had only one complete poem and two fragments. Joaquin Miller himself, while mentioning the absence of qualities necessary for final success, paid high tribute to the promise of her talents and also estimated her as his equal, even his superior. In light of his own judgment of her work, he was cruelly guilty of destroying after her death, or at least of failing to preserve, a large quantity of her writings:
   There was quite half a trunk full of papers which she had brought and intrusted to me, some of them suggesting wonderful things, great thoughts and good and new; for much that she wrote—and maybe this is not great praise —was better than any writing of mine. But she lacked care and toil and sustained thought.
It must be owned that none of the Miller family- did anything to prolong the local fame which she had gained through her poems and bright prose in the Oregon papers before her marriage, while she was Minnie Myrtle Dyer at Port Orford; and had gained through her second period of writing in the 70's, after her divorce. A considerable amount of the work produced in the second period has been found and is given in this chapter, but her earlier work—which romantically attracted Miller—still remains lost. Very few of the ​early papers to which she contributed in her Port Orford days have been preserved. Two years ago, a letter was sent to George Melvin Miller, the poet's brother at Eugene, who has since died, in the hope that he would have clippings of the poems she wrote in the 60's. "I am sorry," he replied, "that I have none of Minnie Myrtle's literary work. Her work was never compiled in book form to my knowledge. According to my recollection, only a few pieces of her work ever were published." George Melvin Miller's own wife, Lischen Miller, had been a poet, but apparently she had shared the family indifference towards the literary fame of Minnie Myrtle Miller.
After several other vain inquiries for clippings, a search was made through all the old papers that could still be had in broken files, with attention focused for anything accredited to her name or her three alliterative initials. This chapter contains all of her poems that were found in this way, as well as some prose, a form in which she was piquant and buoyant when the subject was not her husband. It was all for the second period, however, and still without example of what she wrote in her joyous girlhood days when she was "the merry-hearted and spoiled child of the mines," when she was "the poetess of the Coquelle"—before Joaquin Miller had brought sadness into her life.
The broken marriage of the Millers, and the way he forsook a poetess for poetry, was a matter of wide public interest in Oregon in 1871, while Miller was becoming famous in London, as has already been indicated and as some other selections will still further show. The affair certainly motivated a good ​Minnie Myrtle Miller's poetry during that year, which she spent in Portland and in Salem—at the latter place probably in close companionship with Mrs. Belle W. Cooke, author of Tears and Victory, who was keeping her little daughter, Maud.
Before giving Minnie Myrtle Miller's own writings, it will be interesting to get the background afforded by an article entitled "A Few Facts About Joaquin Miller". It was published in the New Northwest for July 28, 1871, Mrs. Abigail Scott Duniway's woman's suffrage magazine of Portland. Minnie Myrtle Miller was one of the principal contributors to this paper. Whether or not Mrs. Duniway changed her opinion of Miller as a man, she quoted his poem "Mothers of Men" as the peroration of a speech several years later and referred to him as Oregon's greatest poet. Following is the editorial article in her paper, in which she spoke rather plainly about him and mentioned one romantic fact not generally known. She first quoted two paragraphs from the Bedrock Democrat of Baker and made these the basis for her comments:
   Mr. Joaquin Miller, the Oregon poet, formerly of Grant county, has struck a lead in London with his "Songs of the Sierras." He is reported to be the latest pet of the best critical and poetical author ship in the town; the associate of the Rossettis, of Morris, of Jean Ingelow, and others. The principal papers have given him laudatory criticism; and Froude, the historian, Swinburne and Rossetti are to do that office for him in some other leading reviews.
   Judge Miller's wife, we understand, recently obtained a divorce from him, because, as Mrs. Duniway alleges, he spent too much time in writing something he termed poetry. Isn't it possible that the late Mrs. Miller was a little nasty? How will she relish swimming adown the gutter of Time with Mrs. John Milton, Mrs. Lord Byron and the obstreperous wife of the author of Boz?
proud of the genius of our countryman, and are rejoiced at his poetical success, we are not disposed to brook Byron-like instability, the Milton-like moroseness or the Dickens-like pomposity of any literary aspirant. Mrs. Miller has herself a poetical genius of the highest order. It was her inspiration that first evoked the slumbering talents of her inconstant lord. She toiled under pain, inconvenience and poverty to promote the best interests of this American Jean Ingelow—did brother Abbott know Jean was a woman?—and only when she found herself and children deserted, and her husband pursuing another woman who thought his advances capital fun, did she, the outraged wife, and deserted mother, give up her claim of wifehood.
Mrs. "Joaquin" Miller, and another lady quite as deservedly high in poetical fame as this rider of the fabled Pegassus, are at present engaged in rearing the deserted children of this new literary lion. When this task of love and humanity is accomplished the world will yet hear from them sweeter poetical strains than have been wafted to us from across the Atlantic by the truant husband and father, whom the Bedrock Democrat may well liken in his erratic course to some of the dark phases in the lives of illustrious Byron and immortal Boz.
Minnie Myrtle Miller has been described as she appeared at the time she was giving "her bitter lecture about him" in Oregon and California, in 1871 and 1872:
   She was a woman of an odd sort of beauty—on the fantastic order—with a splendid head of curly black hair, dark eyes, and of rather imperious carriage. . . . Very thoughtful looking, alive to her finger tips, and oddly dressed. It was a warm day and she had on a white muslin dress with a black fur tippet about her throat.
The poet's absence in Europe and his swift attain​ment of fame, rather softened her mood for a little while into a sort of defense of him, possibly in some hope of reconciliation, though she held to the picture of her own suffering. When, in the fall of 1871, there was an announcement of his return, now as a famous man, she addressed a long prose letter to the public, through the Salem Mercury and the New Northwest, on November 15, and followed it up with a long poem in the New Northwest on November 24. Following is the prose discourse, done apparently with an eye to what Joaquin Miller would think of it when he should see it. In any case, it was good press-agenting and he could at least appreciate that feature of it.
A Communication to the Public by Mrs. M. M. Miller.
From the Salem Mercury, November 15, 1871
Sir: As Joaquin Miller is now expected to arrive in Portland, I deem it my duty to say a few words in his behalf to the people of Oregon. I have received many letters from different sources requesting me to disclose as much of his conduct toward his children as I will. Although I feel that these things concern no one on the face of the earth but my children and me, still he belongs to the world now, and I have remained silent until remarks have been carried so far as to make my children the subjects of idle gossip, and deem it right to now ask a truce to charges and accusations and request of you to behold the poet, and receive him in a manner that will give due tribute to his genius and success. Mr. Miller has earned a fame, and an appreciation of his efforts should be awarded him. He is a man of literary culture and research; he has read constantly, industriously, and has command of the very best of literature, ancient and modern. It has been his sole ambition for years to go to Europe and acquire a literary fame. He felt, and justly, that he was gifted, ​and his mind being of a fine poetic structure, and his brain very delicately organized, the coarse and practical duties of providing for a family, and the annoyance of children conflicted with his dreams and literary whims. So, when he wrote to me that he would be absent in Europe five or six years, and, in the meantime, I need not expect to hear from him often, as he would be very busy, I asked him for and obtained a divorce in the Courts of Lane County, and your singer was loosed and free and no longer chained to the annoying cares of a family; he could give his whole attention to his poems. I, myself, sympathize with him in his desire to have time and money to "tamper with the Muses" and cultivate his taste and talent for literature; and I feel that all poets and authors will also sympathize with him.
I did not intend that my misfortunes should be publicly known. Illness overtook me in Portland, and by irregularities of the mails, and accidents, we were cut off for a time from communication with our friends. My youngest brother was with me, and I did not ask for assistance; but by accident my friends found me. I must ever remain grateful to them for their timely and generous assistance, but they can bear me witness that I made no public complaint, and the charges made against Mr. M. were not made with my knowledge. I was as much surprised to see them as any one. If, in five years of labor and complete isolation from my relatives, and the world, I worked with him, and not even my nearest neighbor or dearest friend heard one complaint or murmur from my lips; if, through that long winter in Portland, I sewed humbly, day after day, and day after day, as long as I was able; passed the offices and residences of our mutual friends, who were leading and wealthy people, and chose rather to let my babes come upon the verge of starvation than to blemish his reputation by letting my circumstances be known, it is not likely that after the day of hope came, and all was over, I should publicly make known what I had tried so hard to conceal. As I said before, Mr. Miller felt that he had gifts of mind, and if his system of economy was ​rigid and hard to endure, it was at least a success; and if he needed all his money to carry out his plans, I am satisfied that he thus used it. The bitter experience of the past cannot come again. My babes lived through all, and I am more than satisfied. I am grateful, and all is well.
The absurd statement of the Eugene Journal, that I had indignantly returned money that Mr. M. sent me, is incorrect; and its informers are as economical of truth as they are of affection for their own flesh and blood. It would be a sad time to show indignation toward a father when his babes were suffering for the necessaries of life. Joaquin Miller does not claim that he has ever sent a dollar to his children, or provided anything for them in any way from the time of his leaving Oregon until about two months ago, when he sent me twenty-five dollars. He has since sent fifty dollars to Mrs. B. Cooke, for my little girl, and twenty-five to my mother who has the care of my younger children. He will doubtless make explanations, which will be satisfactory to those interested, when he returns. It is true that I had a home with my widowed mother, but the place was dreary and secluded, and there was not a church or a school-house within fifty miles of my mother's home. So I did not deem it a proper place to educate my children, and I came away, bringing them with me, which was contrary to the decree of the Court which gave them to my mother. As I brought them away he was released by law for caring for them, and I have no reason to complain, nor can anyone have, justly. Two hundred dollars a year alimony was allowed, but as it was not secured, you will readily see that Mr. M. was entirely released from any obligations.
The marital relations between Mr. Miller and myself are dissolved, but that does not prevent our holding our precious babes in mutual love and protection ; and, although there are many false sentiments in society in regard to these things, I beg the privilege of exercising my own judgment in regard to my duty towards the father of my children, and my children.
​As we are both mortals, it would be affectation in me were I to profess to take upon myself all the blame, but I ask to bear my full share. The many who feel an interest in him are of more consequence than the few who know and love me; and henceforth I would have you deal with him only as a poet and author. Pronounce your judgment upon his books; know him by his epic heroes. No mortal man can go beyond himself in any conception; when he attempts to he only strikes against the border of his imagination, and rebounds further back. And when man attempts to image a god he takes a step back, and puts upon the shoulders of his god wings which belong to the lower order of creation. Good sometimes comes of evil; the most deadly pistil exhales a delicate perfume; and our separation and sorrows produced the poems of "Myrrh" and "Even So". If I have, after all, recovered my health, and sometimes smile, as others do, I feel that I have some kind of apology. If I am not today the shadowy, faded woman that might be expected, I beg pardon; and if, as a facetious editor writes, I must go down the stream of life alongside of Lady Byron, Mrs. Bulwer, and the obstreperous wife of the author of "Boz", let that be my punishment.
M. M. MILLER.
SALEM, NOV. 5, 1871.
This was her reply in poetry—and we can imagine her addressing him as she addressed him in verse to the winning of his love in her virginal Port Orford days:
To a Poet
From the New Northwest, November 24, 1871 By M.M.M.
Joaquin Miller
Minnie Myrtle Miller
PORTLAND.
Plea for the Inconstant Moon
Written for the New Northwest, May 19, 1871 M. M. Miller
Have Mercy
From the New Northwest By Minnie M. Miller
Miss Anthony's Lectures—Orserveranda
From the New Northwest, September 29, 1871 By Mrs. M. M. Miller
   This sketch, which consists of about the first third of the complete report, shows the freshness, cleverness and wit that must indeed have characterized her when she first appealed to Joaquin Miller and caused their common friends to rate her almost his equal as a writer.
The first night of Mrs. Anthony's lecture my attention was entirely taken up with watching the speaker, for, be it known, the first, last and only time I ever heard a woman speak in public was in the "meetin'-house", lang syne, when Aunt Tribulation Fear-the-Lord arose and through her tears, nose and handkerchief told her "experience".
So the first evening I had eyes and ears only for Miss A.
The following evening I gave her my ears, but managed to bestow my eyes furtively upon her audience.
What I took most interest in observing was the countenances of the gentlemen, who had lain aside that evening their important business matters and come to Miss Anthony's lecture like lambs to the slaughter. That my attention should have been bestowed almost exclusively upon the gentlemen may not seem natural; but when I tell you that I had never yet beheld a set of faces so mobile and expressive, so beaming, smiling and scowling, with all the variable and intense emotions of wrought-up manhood, you will not wonder.
The women were as coolly radiant as though the Suttee had never been performed. They were as serene and unruffled as a Quaker's night-gown. It was not their funeral.
But the men!
Here sat one along-side of his wife. She had towed him in. He was a very reluctant-looking man. It seemed as ​though if it had not been for the name of it he would rather have stayed at home. He was continually shifting his position, meanwhile casting glances at his wife to see the effect of everything upon her. She looked as happy as a cat with her first kitten.
I have not yet reached that point where I take delight in human suffering (now, if the typos print those two last words woman suffrage, I might as well give up). This man's apparent discomfiture made me unhappy, and I wanted to speak in a voice like Mrs. Winslow's syrup and say, "You shall not be hurted", for I could fancy I saw him dodging imaginary blows; he seemed momentarily expecting that Miss Anthony was going to box his ears.
A phlegmatic old gentleman sat behind me, with his chin resting upon his breast and his eyes closed. His play was to be oblivious when Miss Anthony made a point. But cats and old gentlemen are not always asleep when their eyes are closed.
Further on sat a great, benevolent-looking fellow, with his mouth open, staring as never man stared before. This individual interested me, and calling up all my physiognomical and psychological faculties, I assayed to read his thoughts. He heard the truth sublime, as truth ever is; he knew it was the truth, and recognized it as such, but behind him sat a set of cynical old stoics of the old school, and to morrow he must go out with them and canvass and discuss Miss Anthony's lecture, and they will ask him what he thinks of such sophistry as that, and can he say that what he heard was to him logical, forcible and conclusive? and that he believed that glorious woman to be devoted to the true interests of men and women, and laboring to institute a reform which would make men happier and consequently better, and children nearer in the image of Him whose ambassador is fearless and eternal Truth? Will he have the courage to say this to those who scoff? Nay, nay, I read it on his fine, emotional face and weak intellect, but when he meets them in solemn conclave on the street corner he will muster the ​courage to say if he dies for it, "She is a fine figure of a woman."
Another style sat bolt upright, never moving a muscle of his body, contenting himself with blinking slowly and mildly at a neighboring chignon as much as to say: "Can these things be and not overcome us?" etc. Considering the conflict that must have been going on in his mind, I felt that this behavior was very decorous and subdued.
One Hour
From the New Northwest, October 27, 1871
Inscribed to B. W. M.
Who was B. W. M., to who she returns in pensive retrospect as one of the reactions from her broken marriage? Joaquin Miller had had a squaw wife before her. Does this poem indicate that Minnie Myrtle also had had a first love other than the poet? The last initial does not fit her second husband, who was a Mr. Logan of Portland.
My Boys. By Minnie M. Miller From the New Northwest, March 1, 1872
DEDICATED TO MY MOTHER
The Millers had one daughter, Maud, born on Sixes River, north of Port Orford, in 1864. Mrs. Belle W. Cooke of Salem kept her for a while after the divorce. Byronically, Miller later took her from her mother and placed her in a convent school. She became an actress, and died in 1901. There is a fuller note on her in the chapter "A Century of Literary Gossip." The following poem was written of the two younger children—boys, George B. and Harry, born in Canyon City—whom Mrs. Miller had taken to the home of her mother after the divorce.
The Poet Laborer—Stephen Maybell From the Morning Oregonian, July 26, 1872 By Mrs. M. M. Miller
In the chapter on humor in this book is included a poem, "The Willamette Bridge", by Stephen Maybell, with a biographical note on him. His clever and satiric poem, which was helped to fame by the long agitation for a bridge across the river, was written a year or two previous to this tribute to him by Mrs. Miller. The West Shore referred to him as having been at that time "a young and untutored bard of some native genius, who resided in East Portland."
All the prose and poetry given above have been recently found. The only poetry of Minnie Myrtle Miller that has been generally familiar during the last 50 years has consisted of "Sacrifice Impetro", in reply to "Myrrh", by Joaquin Miller, previously referred to, and two fragments—"At the Land's End" and "Encamped"'. In order that this chapter might include all of her writings which at this time can be located, these additional poems are also included. "Sacrifice Impetro" was printed in several Oregon papers at the time it was written, including the Oregon Herald, Salem; the New Northwest, Portland; and the Oregon State Journal, Eugene, in which "Myrrh" had first appeared. The Oregon Historical Society has the original manuscript written in pencil on old-fashioned tablet paper.
Sacrifice Impetro
At the Land’s End
ENCAMPED
Leaf From Minne Myrtle Miller's Journal
Left with Joaquin Miller, describing their journey across the Cascades to Canyon City. "Here is one leaf from her journal, or rather, I think, her recollections of the journey, which she left me along with her other papers when she died."
One night of the journey I shall not soon forget. There had been some fighting ahead of us, and we knew the foe was lurking in ambush. They made a kind of fort of the freight, and while we lay down in the canyon, baby and I, way up on the high, sharp butte, Joaquin stood sentinel. And I say this tonight in his behalf and in his praise that he did bravely, and saved his loved ones from peril that night. That he stood on that dreary summit, a target for the foe, and no one but me to take note of his valor-stood till the morning shone radiant, stood till the night was passed. There was no world looking on to praise his courage and echo it over the land; only the frozen stars in mystic groups far away, and the slender moon, like a sword drawn to hold him at bay.
What has been given is all of her published verse and prose that can be found. Here, however, is an addition of one other poem, which has never before been published and which was found in manuscript among the papers left by her daughter Maud. Through the suggestion of Ella Higginson, the poet, long a close friend of the family, the poem was kindly furnished for this book by Mrs. Florence E. Radley of Bandon, Oregon, who is a niece of Minnie Myrtle Miller.
The Lost Portrait
With the poem, Minnie Myrtle Miller's niece sent the following explanation: "We found the original of this among Maud Miller's belongings. We think that it was written when her mother went east to get her after her father sent her to school in a convent. Minnie Myrtle had made several changes in it. . . . So far as we know this has never been published.
Mrs. Radley has also given a more explicit description of the marriage than is contained in Miller's romanticised version, for it was indeed true that his version of anything, especially anything affecting himself, was likely to be romanticised:
   Theresa Dyer (Minnie Myrtle) came to Oregon in 1859 with her family. Mother has told me that Joaquin Miller came down to their farm on Elk River in Curry County to see Theresa and that within a week after their first meeting they were married. She told what an exciting and thrilling time that was, when they were preparing for the wedding. We have no dates. They could be found in the records at Gold Beach. We were just little girls when Minnie Myrtle, Aunt Theresa we called her, came home with her children to live with her mother after she left Joaquin. She lived in our home for a while. There were three children, Maud, George B., and Hal. None of them are living.
   We do not know Mr. Logan's first name. He and Mrs. Miller were married in Portland probably in the early 70's. They were attracted to each other through a mutual interest in perpetual motion. They had no children. They did not live together long but we do not know whether they were divorced or merely separated.
Long ago Mrs. Ella Higginson read a newspaper interview, in which another relative gave an additional reason why Minnie Myrtle liked her second husband: "Mr. Logan was all fire and Mr. Miller all ice."
"I kept the clipping for years," says Mrs. Higginson, "and it has always puzzled me. Can you imagine Joaquin Miller being 'all ice'?"