The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872

AT NEWPORT

MILLERISM

Toward the close of the last century there was born in New England one William Miller, whose life, until he was past fifty, was the life of the average American of his time. He drank, we suppose, his share of New England rum, when a young man; married a comely Yankee girl, and reared a family of chubby-cheeked children; went about his business, whatever it was, on week days, and when Sunday came, went to meeting with commendable regularity. He certainly read the Old Testament, especially the Book of Daniel, and of the New Testament at least the Book of Revelation. Like many a wiser man before him, he was troubled at what he read, filled as it was with mystical numbers and strange beasts, and he sought to understand it, and to apply it to the days in which he lived. He made the discovery that the world was to be destroyed in 1843, and went to and fro in the land preaching that comfortable doctrine. He had many followers—as many as fifty thousand, it is said, who thought they were prepared for the end of all things; some going so far as to lay in a large stock of ascension robes. Though no writer himself, he was the cause of a great deal of writing on the part of others, who flooded the land with a special and curious literature—the literature of Millerism. It is not of that, however, that we would speak now.

But before this Miller arose—we proceed to say, if only to show that we are familiar with other members of the family—there was another, and very different Miller, who was born in old England, about one hundred years earlier than our sadly, or gladly, mistaken Second Adventist. His Christian name was Joseph, and he was an actor of repute, celebrated for his excellence in some of the comedies of Congreve. The characters which he played may have been comic ones, but he was a serious man. Indeed, his gravity was so well known in his lifetime that it was reckoned the height of wit, when he was dead, to father off upon him a Jest Book! This joke, bad as it was, was better than any joke in the book. It made him famous, so famous that for the next hundred years every little bon mot was laid at his door, metaphorically speaking, the puniest youngest brat of them being christened "Old Joe."

After Joseph Miller had become what Mercutio calls "a grave man," his descendants went into literature largely, as any one may see by turning to Allibone's very voluminous dictionary, where upwards of seventy of the name are immortalized, the most noted of whom are Thomas Miller, basket-maker and poet, and Hugh Miller, the learned stone-mason of Cromarty, whose many works, we confess with much humility, we have not read. To the sixty-eight Millers in Allibone (if that be the exact number), must now be added another—Mr. Joaquin Miller, who published, two or three months since, a collection of poems entitled "Songs of the Sierras." From which one of the Millers mentioned above his ancestry is derived, we are not informed; but, it would seem, from the one first-named. For clearly the end of all things literary cannot be far off, if Mr. Miller is the "coming poet," for whom so many good people have been looking all their lives. We are inclined to think that such is not the fact. We think, on the whole, that it is to the other Miller—Joking Miller—his genealogy is to be traced.

But who is Mr. Miller, and what has he done? A good many besides ourselves put that question, less than a year ago, and nobody could answer it. Nobody, that is, in America. In England he was a great man. He went over to England, unheralded, it is stated, and was soon discovered to be a poet. Swinburne took him up; the Rossettis took him up; the critics took him up; he was taken up by everybody in England, except the police, who, as a rule, fight shy of poets. He went to fashionable parties in a red shirt, with trowsers tucked into his boots, and instead of being shown to the door by the powdered footman, was received with enthusiasm. It is incredible, but it is true. A different state of society existed, thirty or forty years ago, when another American poet went to England; and we advise our readers, who have leisure at their command, to compare it with the present social lawlessness of the upper classes among the English. To do this, they have only to turn to the late N.P. Willis's "Pencilings by the Way," and contrast his descriptions of the fashionable life of London then, with almost any journalistic account of the same kind of life now. The contrast will be all the more striking if they will only hunt up the portraits of Disraeli, with his long, dark locks flowing on his shoulders, and the portrait of Bulwer, behind his "stunning" waistcoat, and his cascade of neck-cloth, and then imagine Mr. Miller standing beside them, in his red shirt and high-topped California boots! Like Byron, Mr. Miller "woke up one morning and found himself famous."

We compare the sudden famousness of Mr. Miller with the sudden famousness of Byron, because the English critics have done so; and because they are pleased to consider Mr. Miller as Byron's successor! Byron, we are told, was the only poet whom he had read, before he went to England; and is the only poet to whom he bears a resemblance. How any of these critics could have arrived at this conclusion, with the many glaring imitations of Swinburne—at his worst—staring him in the face from Mr. Miller's volume, is inconceivable. But, perhaps, they do not read Swinburne. Do they read Byron?

There are, however, some points of resemblance between Byron and Mr. Miller. Byron traveled, when young, in countries not much visited by the English; Mr. Miller claims to have traveled, when young, in countries not visited by the English at all. This was, and is, an advantage to both Byron and Mr. Miller. But it was, and is, a serious disadvantage to their readers, who cannot well ascertain the truth, or falsehood, of the poets they admire. The accuracy of Byron's descriptions of foreign lands has long been admitted; the accuracy of Mr. Miller's descriptions is not admitted, we believe, by those who are familiar with the ground he professes to have gone over.

Another point of resemblance between Byron and Mr. Miller is, that the underlying idea of their poetry is autobiographic. We do not say that it was really so in Byron's case, although he, we know, would have had us believe as much; nor do we say that it is really so in Mr. Miller's case, although he, too, we suspect, would have us believe as much.

Mr. Miller resembles Byron as his "Arizonian" resembles Byron's "Lara." Lara and Arizonian are birds of the same dark feather. They have journeyed in strange lands; they have had strange experiences; they have returned to Civilization. Each, in his way, is a Blighted Being! "Who is she?" we inquire with the wise old Spanish Judge, for, certainly, Woman is at the bottom of it all. If our readers wish to know what woman, we refer them to "Arizonian:" they, of course, have read "Lara."

Byron was a great poet, but Byronism is dead. Mr. Miller is not a great poet, and his spurious Byronism will not live. We shall all see the end of Millerism.

THE REAL ROMANCE

The author laid down his pen, and leaned back in his big easy chair. The last word had been written—Finis—and there was the complete book, quite a tall pile of manuscript, only waiting for the printer's hands to become immortal: so the author whispered to himself. He had worked hard upon it; great pains had been expended upon the delineations of character, and the tone and play of incident; the plot, too, had been worked up with much artistic force and skill; and, above all, everything was so strikingly original; no one, in regarding the various characters of the tale, could say: this is intended for so-and-so! No, nothing precisely like the persons in his romance had ever actually existed; of that the author was certain, and in that he was very probably correct. To be sure, there was the character of the country girl, Mary, which he had taken from his own little waiting-maid: but that was a very subordinate element, and although, on the whole, he rather regretted having introduced anything so incongruous and unimaginative, he decided to let it go. The romance, as a whole, was too great to be injured by one little country girl, drawn from real life. "And by the way," murmured the author to himself, "I wish Mary would bring in my tea."

He settled himself still more comfortably in his easy chair, and thought, and looked at his manuscript; and the manuscript looked back; but all its thinking had been done for it. Neither spoke—the author, because the book already knew all he had to say; and the book, because its time to speak and be immortal had not yet arrived. The fire had all the talking to itself, and it cackled, and hummed, and skipped about so cheerfully that one would have imagined it expected to be the very first to receive a presentation copy of the work on the table. "How I would devour its contents!" laughed the fire.

Perhaps the author did not comprehend the full force of the fire's remark, but the voice was so cosy and soothing, the fire itself so ruddy and genial, and the easy chair so softly cushioned and hospitable, that he very soon fell into a condition which enabled him to see, hear, and understand a great many things which might seem remarkable, and, indeed, almost incredible.

The manuscript on the table which had hitherto remained perfectly quiet, now rustled its leaves nervously, and finally flung itself wide open. A murmur then arose, as of several voices, and presently there appeared (though whether stepping from between the leaves of the book itself, or growing together from the surrounding atmosphere, the author could not well make out) a number of peculiar-looking individuals, at the first glance appearing to be human beings, though a clear investigation revealed in each some odd lack or exaggeration of gesture, feature, or manner, which might create a doubt as to whether they actually were, after all, what they purported to be, or only some lusus naturæ. But the author was not slow to recognize them, more especially as, happening to cast a glance at the manuscript, he noticed that it was such no longer, but a collection of unwritten sheets of paper, blank as when it lay in the drawer at the stationer's—unwitting of the lofty destiny awaiting it.

Here, then, were the immortal creations which were soon to astound the world, come, in person, to pay their respects to the author of their being. He arose and made a profound obeisance to the august company, which they one and all returned, though in such a queer variety of ways, that the author, albeit aware that every individual had the best of reasons for employing, under certain special circumstances, his or her particular manner of salute, could scarcely forbear smiling at the effect they all together produced in his own unpretending study.

"Your welcome visit," said the author, addressing his guests with all the geniality of which he was master (for they seemed somewhat stiff and ill-at-ease), "gives me peculiar gratification. I regret not having asked some of my friends, the critics, up here to make your acquaintance. I am sure you would all come to the best possible understanding directly."

"They cannot fathom me," exclaimed a strikingly handsome young man, with pale lofty brow, and dark clustering locks, who was leaning with proud grace against the mantel-piece. "They may take my life, but they cannot read my soul." And he laughed, scornfully, as he always did.

This was a passage from that famous ante-mortem soliloquy in which the hero of the romance indulges in the last chapter but one. The author, while, of course, he could not deny that the elegance of the diction was only equaled by the originality of the sentiment, yet felt a slight uneasiness that his hero should adopt so defiant a tone with those who were indeed to be the arbiters of his existence.

"I'm afraid there's not enough perception of the comme il faut in him to suit the every-day world," muttered he. "To be sure, he was not constructed for ordinary ends. Do you find yourself at home in this life, madame?" he continued aloud, turning to a young lady of matchless beauty, whose brief career of passionate love and romantic misery the author had described in thrilling chapters. She raised her luminous eyes to his, and murmured reproachfully: "Why speak to me of Life? if it be not Love, it is Life no longer!"

It was very beautiful, and the author recollected having thought, at the time he wrote it down, that it was about the most forcible sentence in that most powerful passage of his book. But it was rather an exaggerated tone to adopt in the face of such common-place surroundings. Had this exquisite creature, after all, no better sense of the appropriate?

"No one can know better than I, my dear Constance," said the author, in a fatherly tone, "what a beautiful, tender, and lofty soul yours is; but would it not be well, once in a while, to veil its lustre—to subdue it to a tint more in keeping with the unvariegated hue of common circumstance?"

"Heartless and cruel!" sobbed Constance, falling upon the sofa, "hast thou not made me what I am?"

This accusation, intended by the author to be leveled at the traitor lover, quite took him aback when directed, with so much aptness, too, at his respectable self. But whom but himself could he blame, if, when common sense demanded only civility and complaisance, she persisted in adhering to the tragic and sentimental? He was provoked that he had not noticed this defect in time to remedy it; yet he had once considered Constance as, perhaps, the completest triumph of his genius! There seemed to be something particularly disenchanting in the atmosphere of that study.

"I'm afraid you're a failure, ma'am, after all," sighed the author, eyeing her disconsolately. "You're so one-sided!"

At this heartless observation the lady gave a harrowing shriek, thereby summoning to her side a broad-shouldered young fellow, clad in soldier's garb, with a countenance betokening much boldness and determination. He faced the author with an angry frown, which the latter at once recognized as being that of Constance's brother Sam.

"Now then, old bloke!" sang out that young gentleman, "what new deviltry are you up to? Down on your knees and beg her pardon, or, by George! I'll run you through the body!"

On this character the author had expended much thought and care. He was the type of the hardy and bold adventurer, rough and unpolished, perhaps, but of true and sterling metal, who, by dint of his vigorous common sense and honest, energetic nature, should at once clear and lighten whatever in the atmosphere of the story was obscure and sombre; and, by the salutary contrast of his fresh and rugged character with the delicate or morbid traits of his fellow beings, lend a graceful symmetry to the whole. The sentence Sam had just delivered with so much emphasis ought to have been addressed to the traitor lover, when discovered in the act of inconstancy, and, so given, would have been effective and dramatic. But at a juncture like the present, the author felt it to be simply ludicrous, and had he not been so mortified, would have laughed outright!

"Don't make a fool of yourself, Sam," remonstrated he. "Reflect whom you're addressing, and in what company you are, and do try and talk like a civilized being."

"Come, come! no palaver," returned Sam, in a loud and boisterous tone (to do him justice, he had never been taught any other); "down on your marrow-bones at once, or here goes for your gizzard!" and he drew his sword with a flourish.

So this was the rough diamond—the epitome of common sense! Why, he was a half-witted, impertinent, overbearing booby, and his author longed to get him across his knee, and correct him in the good old way. But meantime the point of the young warrior's sword was getting unpleasantly near the left breast-pocket of the author's dressing gown (which he wore at the time), and the latter happened to recollect, with a nervous thrill, that this was the sword which mortally wounded the traitor lover (for whom Sam evidently mistook him) during the stirring combat so vividly described in the twenty-second chapter. Could he but have foreseen the future, what a different ending that engagement should have had! But again it was too late, and the author sprang behind the big easy chair with astonishing agility, and from that vantage ground endeavored to bring on a parley.

Yet how could he argue and expostulate against himself? How arraign Sam of harboring murderous designs which he had himself implanted in his bosom? How, indeed, expect him to comprehend conversation so entirely foreign to his experience? It was an awkward dilemma.

It was Sam who took it by the horns. Somebody, he felt, must be mortally wounded; and finding himself defrauded of one subject, he took up with the next he encountered, which chanced to be none other than the venerable and white-haired gentleman who filled the position, in the tale, of a wealthy and benevolent uncle. The author, having always felt a sentiment of exceptional respect and admiration for this reverend and patriarchal personage, who by his gentle words and sage counsels, no less than his noble generosity, had done so much to elevate and sweeten the tone of his book, fell into an ecstasy of terror at witnessing the approach of his seemingly inevitable destruction; especially as he perceived that the poor old fellow (who never in his life had met with aught but reverence and affection, and knew nothing of the nature of deadly weapons and impulses) was, so far, from attempting to defend himself, or even escape, actually opening his arms to the widest extent of avuncular hospitality, and preparing to take his assassin, sword and all, into his fond and forgiving heart!

"You old fool!" shrieked the author, in the excess of his irritation and despair; "he isn't your repentant nephew! Why can't you keep your forgiveness until it's wanted?"

But Uncle Dudley having been created solely to forgive and benefit, was naturally incapable of taking care of himself, and would certainly have been run through the ample white waistcoat, had not an unexpected and wholly unprecedented interruption averted so awful a catastrophe.

A small, graceful figure, wearing a picturesque white cap, with jaunty ribbons, and a short scarlet petticoat, from beneath which peeped the prettiest feet and ancles ever seen, stepped suddenly between the philanthropic victim and his would-be-murderer, dealt the latter a vigorous blow across the face with a broom she carried, thereby toppling him over ignominiously into the coal-scuttle, and then, placing her plump hands saucily akimbo, she exclaimed with enchanting naivete: "There! Mr. Free-and-easy! take that for your imperance."

This little incident caused the author to fall back into his easy chair in a condition of profound emotion. It appeared to have corrected a certain dimness or obliquity in his vision, of the existence of which its cure rendered him for the first time conscious. The appearance of the little country girl (whose very introduction into the romance the author had looked upon with misgivings) had afforded the first gleam of natural, refreshing, wholesome interest—in fact, the only relief to all that was vapid, irrational, and unreal—which the combined action of the characters in his romance had succeeded in producing. But the enchantress who had effected this, so far from being the most unadulterated product of his own brain and genius, was the only one of all his dramatis personæ who was not in the slightest degree indebted to him for her existence. She was nothing more than an accurate copy of Mary the house-maid, while the others—the mis-formed, ill-balanced, one-sided creations, who, the moment they were placed beyond the pale of their written instructions—put out of the regular and pre-arranged order of their going—displayed in every word and gesture their utter lack and want of comprehension of the simplest elements of human nature: these were the unaided offspring of the author's fancy. And yet it was by help of such as these he had thought to push his way to immortality! How the world would laugh at him! and, as he thought this, a few bitter tears of shame and humiliation trickled down the sides of the poor man's nose.

Presently he looked up. The warlike Sam remained sitting disconsolately in the coal-hod; his instructions suggested no means of extrication. Forsaken Constance lay fainting on the sofa, waiting for some one to chafe her hands and bathe her temples. The strikingly handsome betrayer leant in sullen and gloomy silence against the mantel-piece, ready to treat all advances with stern and defiant obduracy. The benevolent uncle stood with open arms and bland smile, never doubting but that everybody was preparing for a simultaneous rush to, and participation in, his embrace; and, finally, the pretty little country girl, with her arms akimbo and her nose in the air, remained mistress of the situation. Her unheard of innovation, of having done something timely, sensible, and decisive, even though not put down in the book, seemed to have paralyzed all the others. Ah! she was the only one there who was not less than a shadow. The author felt his desolate heart yearn towards her, and the next moment found himself on his knees at her feet.

"Mary," cried he, "you are my only reality. The others are empty and soulless, but you have a heart. They are the children of a conceited brain and visionary experience; you, only, have I drawn simply and unaffectedly, as you actually existed. Except for you, whom I slighted and despised, my whole romance had been an unmitigated falsehood. To you I owe my preservation from worse than folly, and my initiation into true wisdom. Mary—dear Mary, in return I have but one thing to offer you—my heart! Can you—will you not love me?"—

To his intense surprise, Mary, instead of evincing a becoming sense of her romantic situation, burst forth into a merry peal of laughter, and, catching him by one shoulder, gave him a hearty shake.

"La sakes! Mr. Author, do wake up! did ever anybody hear such a man!"

There was his room, his fire, his chair, his table, and his closely-written manuscript lying quietly upon it. There was he himself on his knees on the carpet, and—there was Mary the house-maid, one hand holding the brimming tea-pot, the other held by the author against his lips, and laughing and blushing in a tumult of surprise, amusement and, perhaps, something better than either.