The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-01-01

| Gone of the Californian, nay American, ''wonders') stretched out his hand from | the bed when he saw me lowing at the l entrance of his hut. It is his habit to pass, or invite his own soul, the whole afternoon in bed, wearing a skull cap | which adds to him such a romantic touch of some older age. l had not yet forgotten how to bow, then, being hard | ly twenty months in America-why, Lord, 1t is already nine years ago. The scene of my first meeting with l him, however, floats clearly and sweetly before my eyes as If 1t were yesterday, the scene which makes me imagine my first ascent of the olive-set Olympus where one has only to learn to love, and religiously love the sublime and the beautiful. Let me say simple living and high thinking" although 1t is dreadfully shopworn.
 How romantically great he looked! l cannot think of any more striking ap- bearing parsonage than himself and I have seen a number of the good and great both in England and in this coun- try. That night 1 slept indeed far nearer t by the stars. The stars everywhere, the stars in the heavens and the stars in the earth! Who can tell where the light leaves off and the stars begin? Really a thousand lights of some ten towns which 1 saw from the "Heights'-the place verify near to God, and yet also near to man and woman-turned to stars in mag ical air. l promised myself 1 will build here my sacred temple--the house of God. l wished to make my life grow in secret, silence, mystery and solemnity l hoped my eyes would open to every thing which was good ana great.
 Oh, what dawn and sunrise Remem- Der, one lives partly in clouds, heinz at the Heights. The clouds, rolling above the towns, will lift, rift a little, and by and by, many a church spire will be pointing up. And you look down over the bay, nay, the mobile floor of silverl
 l was 19 years old then. l thank God 1t was the month of May. when peoples and buttercups closely covered the hill and spilled their treasures far up and down everywhere, singing and laughing You might see many a squirrel popping out into the purple air. What a gorgeous shadow of the acacia tree! What music of the birds How delighted I was with the simple song of a meadow lark. Any simple thing would turn more beautiful on the Heights You might see butter flies passing by the hut in tremendous haste, some dropping in to rest on my writing table for a while. There would be nothing more natural than to dream of natures beauty. Dream Is real at Miller's Heights.
 Truth is, Truth was, Truth will be-" Miller says. "No poet can create or de- stroy one particle of truth, any more than he can create or destroy particle of gold.
 ''He can only give it a new form, gar ment 1t with splendor. and set it in a new lgh. Were 1 to try to define poetry, l should say that poety is the diviney beautiful woman Truth, gorgeousy, yet modestly and most perfectly gowned. And l assure you that the only true po- etry is plain common sense. Truth, Truth and again Truth. the Right Heartn'
 The sweetest flowers grow closest to the ground, as he says. There is no art without heart. First of all. he taught me how really to know nature by myself. It would be better to know, doubtless, of your own knowledge, the color, the per fume. the nature, the twning, of a sin gle little creeping vine in the canon, than to know all the Rocky mountains through a book.
 Book Is nothngl' Miller will shout. He puts the love of man far above the love of nature. He is the poet of human ity. He is a firm believer in the immor- tality of man and of the soul
 He will talk much on economy: Ma ture wastes nothing-nothing, least of all does nature waste time,' he will begin. Yet nature is never in haste. Remem- Der to go slowly and diligently toward the goal and the stars No debating of any sort l allow you. See, what saving of timeI'
 Then he will say, if you ask him about the methods or detail of teaching the di- vine are of poetry, that he has none, ab- solutely nothing. What use to talk about itl It would be perfectly unnec- essary even to mention poetry when you live at the Heights. You will rise with a bird and wind and breathe the breath of God and beauty. You will sit down under a tree and think something higher once in while
 And you will comfortably wait for the moon and faney's coming. Then you are living in poetry. To live in it would be nobler than to write. You are already poet and perhaps great poet if you be