ized, the coarse and practical duties of providing for a family, and the annoyance of children, conflicted with his dreams and literary whims." It had been for years his ambition to go to Europe and become famous. Time and money were of course necessary to his project, and when he wrote his wife that he should be absent for five or six years, and that she must not expect to hear from him often, she thought it would be better to release him at once from domestic obligations. . . . Mrs. Miller assures us that she fully sympathized with her husband's projects, and that she believes them to be justified by their practical results. "Mr. Miller," she says, "felt that he had gifts of the mind, and if his system of economy was rigid and hard to endure, it was at least a success; and if he needed all his money to carry out his plans, I am satisfied that he thus used it. . . . As we are both mortals, it would be affectation in me were I to profess to take upon myself all the blame, but I ask to bear my full share. . . . Good sometimes comes of evil. . . . Our separation and sorrows produced the poems of 'Myrrh' and 'Even So.'"
It was at about this point in his career that Miller proved the adage about a prophet in his own country.
And now perhaps he did seriously consider hiding his head for a time in Europe—hiding it in the Byronic fashion. From early in 1872 till 1875 "Childe" Miller wandered extensively, returning to Europe with a wide detour by way of South America and the Near East. From scattered references one gathers that he made acquaintance with the
