after he
began to write poetry, this habit of plagiarism was not
abandoned, if his wife's testimony is worth anything, and if
we do not misinterpret the following quotation taken from
her "Sacrifice Impetro,"
a reply to Miller's farewell on
leaving Oregon:
And he through books and bays
Delveth for pretty words
To weave in his languid lays
Of women, and streams, and birds.
For this and many other better reasons we don't hesitate
to pronounce the belief that this so-called poet is what is
termed, in the vernacular of the coast, a first-class bilk, and
that besides the other injuries that he has inflicted upon his
unhappy wife, he has filched from her the literary jewels
and published them as his own.
Up to the date of his marriage Miller had published no
poetry, if indeed he had written any. But up to that time and
for a long time prior thereto, the people of this state had
been charmed by the verses of Mrs. Miller, then "Minnie
Myrtle."
Minnie Myrtle's poetry left off where Miller's
begun. Those who take the trouble to compare Miller's
Joaquin et al with these verses of Mrs. Miller, published
ten years ago, will readily detect her poetic genius upon the
best pages of the book. In some of them they will recognize
the woman, as for instance, in the Sierra Nevadas, which
makes them look
As though Diana's maid last night,
Had in the liquid, soft moonlight,
Washed out her Mistress' garment bright
And on yon bent and swaying line
Hung all her linen out to dry.
It is much more likely that the simile of a line hung with
linen and which employs the idea of washing garments in
moonlight, should occur to a woman of strong poetic imagi
nation, the routine of whose life was the wash-tub and the
kitchen, than to a languid and dyspeptic man. The quotation
has the credit of being the best in
