https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-boston-globe-cincinnatus-heine-mille/190664784/
Boston Globe, Feb. 1880
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CINCINNATUS HEINE MILLER, Alias Joaquin, the Eccentric Poet of the Sierras. His Autobiography as Related to James Redpath. Chore-boy, Miner, Warrior, Lawyer Poet and Horse-Thief. Though Joaquin Miller is not a lecturer, he once thought of being one, which seems to nave been James Redpath's excuse for including him in his character sketches in the San Francisco Chronicle, Seeing a picture of Miller on Redpath's st study wall, the reporter observed, "You know Mr. Miller, I see?" J.
R.-Your California Byron in moccasins? Oh, yes. I heard of him before I saw him---once in while, not quite voluntarily--from a bright Boston lawyer, Dick Spofford, the husband of the gifted novelist, who made her maiden name of Harriet Prescott a famous one before she dropped it inside of the railing of the altar. More than once Mr. Spofford stopped me in the street when I was going at a double quick- business--and played the role of the Ancient Mariner, making me take the reluctant bridegroom's part; and he held me by his glittering eye while he talked with enthusiasm about the new California poet.
Rep.-But he isn't a Californian.
J. R. -Oh, now don't split hairs. Joaquin was once arrested for stealing horses in California, and if that doesn't make him a citizen of your state what do you exact of a poet before you naturalize him? There ought to be reason in all things. If you make the terms so hard you'll drive immigration away from your state.
Spofford wanted me to trap Joaquin as a lecturer. told him my sentiments on that subject agreed with those of Barkis. Once he announced that Miller was coming to his house, and he would bring the Sierra poet to the bureau and introduce him to me. Well, one day Spofford came into the bureau and marched rapidly across the room to the desk where I was writing. “Mr. Redpath," he said, "let me introduce you to Mr. Joaquin-” He turned round and flushed. We both looked at the door. There was Miller standing right in the doorway, looking all round the walls at the portraits of the celebrities for whom we were managers, He turned his back and walked slowly round the walls, examining the pictures at his leisure. Diek was embarrassed and I was amused.
Miller was dressed in a summer suit, but he wore
-not a new one either-and his long yellow hair hung in ringlets down his shoulders. I had lived for years on the frontier and saw that the poet meant no offence, but was only "taking in" the “lay of a new ranch." When he reached my desk, Spofford introduced him.
"How are you, Redpath?" said Miller, in the most indifferent tones, hardly looking at me, and carelessly extending his hand. I said in the same tone, and with the same manner, "How are you, Miller?" and kept on talking to Spofford as he continued examining the pictures. He came in pretty often after that visit, but his manner hardly changed, until one morning, after Mrs. Livermore, who had just come from Kansas, had been telling him some incident of my life there, he came up cordially, shook bands and said he didn't know was I a westerner—that he had been afraid I was one of those Boston snobs! I took some friends who wished to meet him to his room at the Revere House. A Mexican saddle and a blanket lay on the floor, and what with pistols, wildcat skins and other western chase trophies, the room looked as Bottom did to Quince, "translated." I don't believe any room in Boston, even before or since, was so uniquely furnished.
A few days afterward I gave the gifted young exile of Erin, Boyle O' Reilly, a note of introduction to Miller, in which I said that the bearer was a poet. and had once been transported for life to a penal colony, and it seemed to me they ought to know each other. That note pleased Joaquin, and since that, with one or two relapses, I have been on the best of terms with your poet. You see we had another fraternal bond of union--I had once been arrested on the charge of stealing horses myself. I am the only man who has ever visited Joaquin Miller in his own private dwelling in this city.
Rep.- Where is it?
J. R.-I am under a pledge not to tell anybody where it is. It is a French flat, up two flights, in a quiet street near one of the great thoroughfares. The little parlor is a study. It is
The windows are hung with heavy curtains of Florentine tapestry, which is decorated with the skins of the California lion. The furniture is of ebony, inlaid with ivory, and the upholstery is rich and artistic. There is an expensive velvet carpet on the floor. Everywhere--over the chairs, on the sofa, on the floors and on the walls--are the trophies of the chase—every skin," as he said, "that grows in California.' His holsters and pistols were hung up near the door. There were little dainty arrangements of ornaments that seemed to me to indicate the delicate taste of a woman; but although the poet has caused one of his characters to say that "them's a bad lot fur the women as writes poetry," there was no ether visible evidence of any feminine.
presence. He has portraits of his favorite daughter Maude, the duchess, Mrs. Langtry ,and other of his English lady friends on the walls. He has no books. He never had a library.
He is like the Frenchman Emerson tells about who said, *When I want a book I write one.' He had only six books in the room -four of them were his poems, a present from his publisher; the fifth, Edward Sears' "Nonsense Songs," which he described as the greatest book ever written in this world, and a presentation book of poems, which he said wasn't worth a —-. He gave it to me, and, sure enough, it wasn't worth the price indicated. Miller said he didn't read many books; he went to church every Sunday, not to the high-toned churches, but often to the negro churches, and where there were live preachers. He thought he was pretty well posted in the Bible. He showed the fulness of his knowledge of the scriptures when he remarked that he lived sometimes here and sometimes at a hotel; that he was like Moses when the Hebrew leader went forty days into the mountain—he needed seasons of utter seclusion when he wanted to think and write; and then, when he felt he ought to go among men, he took a room at the hotel.