Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1872-10-15
JOAQUIN MILLER.

Mrs, MiiIer's Lecture Rt Pacific
Hall, san FranciscO-lHtstOr al
the Poets welded Lite and
Sketches of His Character.- 81
From the San Francisco Chronicle.l
Everybody remembers Mrs. Miller s
famous letter written about year ago,
in which she gave to an appreciative
world a brief history Of her career with
Joaquin. That letter was perhaps one
of the most brilliantly written things
ever produced in the English language.
The praise of her husband, coupled
with the different strata of keen, bur-
nished satire which ran through it all,
won for Mrs. Miller the undisguised ad-
miration of the entire Eastern and En-
glish press. The letter was commented
on upon all sides, and so beautifully was
the sarcasm masked in it that half its
critics were at a loss to find wherein its
chief merit laid. -
THE SPIRIT AT WORK AGAIN.
Last night Mrs. Miller made her debut
in the lecture field, and essayed to in
struct her hearers little more in what
she knew about the great poet. Pacific
Hall was pretty well filled, although not
so well as the lecturess and her subject
deserved. Mrs. Miller is a pale, thought
full looking woman, and one who shows
that she has passed through world of
care and sorrow. She is not perhaps so
handsome in form and figure as she isin
the soul which beams out of her eyes
and lights up her delicately moulded
face. She was attired in a plain black
silk, and wore her hair dropping about
her shoulders in a wealth of ringlets.
Her delivery is good, and her words are
given with all the pungency with which
they are written. ~
THE POET AND THE MAN.
Mrs. Miller begas her lecture as fol-
lows: Joaquin Miller, the poet of the
Sierras, is not my individual property.
He belongs to the world of poetry and of
letters; but this world must bear in
mind that he was mine before he had
gone through the process which had
made him valuable to the world. As q
diamond in the rough he belonged to
me, and as such Iproposeto tell you OF
him. / do not come before you as
wronged or deserted wife. | do not
come to complain. The course of our
life has developed a new phase of nature,
and no one is injured TO any great ex
tent. / have the experience, and the
world has the poet.
The career of Joaquin Miller as
poet has been more remarkable than
that of any other known. The career
of this man, as n man, has not been less
He left home at the age
of fourteen, and the intervening years
had been spent mostly in the shadow Of
Mount Shasta, with red men and women
for companions.
THE POET BOY, WITH HIS YELLOW HAIR,
and blue eyes, had heard Of Joaquin
Murietta, the Spanish bandit, and
thought him the greatest man of the age. !
To be like Joaquin was the dream Of his |
life. Adventure, spiced with danger, |
was his constant pursuit. If he did not
have the discretion, sagacity, and sub
tlety of the Poet Of the Sierras, he at
east had the persistent energy and in
iefatigable industry which characterizes
Joaquin Miller. She FIRST wrote him,
and then asked. him to come to her.
She says: / wrote letters descriptive Of
he wild, romantic scenery. i told him
IF the gloomy pines and the moaning /
,edars; Of the wild roses and the gay
lowers that crammed the bluffs; Of the /
lpoiled fishes that stole away up through /
he silent streams; Of the white lagoon !
md the little sail-boat that waited on its
shores at my behest; Of the birds that
Ihrieked from theirnests upon the reefs,