[Footnote: The quotations from the poems of Joaquin Miller appearing in
this chapter are used by permission of the Harr Wagner Publishing
Company, owners of copyright.]

A STUDY OF HOME, FATHER LOVE, GREAT MOMENTS WITH JESUS CHRIST, HEAVEN,
AND GOD


It was a warm, sunny May California day; and the day stands out, even
above California days. A climb up the Piedmont hills back of Oakland,
California, brought us to "The Heights," the unique home of Joaquin
Miller, poet of the West and poet of the world.

A visit to the homes of the New England poets is always interesting
because of historic and literary associations, but none of them has
the touch of the unique personality of Miller.

Most people interested in things literary know that Miller, with a
great desire to emphasize the freedom of the individual, built a half
dozen separate houses, one for himself, one for his wife, one for his
daughter Juanita, several for guests from all over the world who were
always visiting him, and a little chapel. Literary men from every
nation on the planet visited Miller at "The Heights." Most people
interested knew also that Miller, with his own hands, had built
monuments of stone to Fremont, the explorer, to Moses, and to Browning.
There was also a granite funeral pyre for himself, within sight of the
little "God's Acre," in which he had buried some eighteen or twenty
outcasts and derelicts of earth who had no other plot to call their own
in which to take their last long sleep.