Uncle William Birkinbine Miller

A GENTLEMAN AND A SCHOLAR
~ BORN 160 YEARS AGO TODAY ~
ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

William Birkinbine Miller
June 28, 1859 - November 8, 1893

Uncle Will's Funeral Flowers
Cause of death: colon cancer at age 34

Uncle Will was the eldest brother of my Great - Grandmother Anna Mary Miller Heidemann (1862 - 1923). Anna Mary's little daughter -- my Grandmother Rovilla (1891 - 1966) -- was only 2 years old at the time of Will's death, yet, through the decades, she became the keeper of his memory, passing on to my mother and me the remaining souvenirs of his short life and literary temperment. Though Will had long "gone from all touch," Rovilla kept his "unseen presence within the borders of day" (William Soutar).

First among the tokens
is this small New Testament,
a present from Will to Anna in 1879:

1879

On the back page, he has written:

"Wm B. Miller is my name
Kleinfeltersville is my dwelling place
Richland is my station
Remember me if this you see
When I am far away and gone
My bones laid low in the grave
With a tombstone o'er my head and feet.
Sandville
March 14th 1879
To My Sister Annie M. Miller"
Fans of James Joyce surely remember when Stephen attends Clongowes Wood Boarding School, and a classmate named Fleming writes in Stephen's geography notebook:
“Stephen Dedalus is my name,
Ireland is my nation.
Clongowes is my dwellingplace
And heaven my expectation.”

~from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
It never occurred to me, when first studying Joyce, that Stephen's little book rhyme had a been in use for decades by generations of previous school - children, including my own ancestors!

Additional Souvenirs:

Above and below, Rovilla has noted
-- in her own beautiful cursive script --
these samples of Will's signature and handwriting

Fragments of Poetry

In her sorrowful poem of resignation, "Dirge Without Music," American poet Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892 - 1950) describes the extent of loss we have no choice but to endure when a loved one dies:
"A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains,—but the best is lost.

The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,—
They are gone. . . ."

Contemporary comedian Bill Maher
puts it this way:

"Earth is a time share;
we can't all be here at the same time;
That's just the way it works."
So true. The fact is, even if William Birkinbine Miller had lived a long life, his path and mine on this planet would have been very unlikely to cross, considering that we were born 98 years apart. Yet, here's the thing, "a formula, a phrase, a fragment" does indeed remain. Thanks to Will's handwritten inscription, I see a quirky sense of humor, a brother who loved his sister, and a handful of place names whose significance I can pursue further if I wish.

Thanks to a page torn from his English literature notebook over a century ago, I'm lucky enough not only to see Uncle Will's very own handwriting but also to know a few of his favorite romantic poems, though not necessarily his intention: studying for a test, memorizing for a recitation, creating a Valentine, proposing marriage to Aunt Emma? Or maybe just like me, he loved making connections!

1. from Tamerlane ~ Nicholas Rowe (1674 - 1718)

Selima, Daughter of the Emperor:
So when some skilful Artist strikes the Strings,
The magick Numbers rouze our sleeping Passions,
And force us to confess our Grief, and Pleasure.
Alas! Axalla, say—dost thou not pity
My artless Innocence, and easie Fondness?
Oh! turn thee from me, or I die with blushing.

Axalla, an Italian Prince:
No—let me rather gaze, for ever gaze,
And bless the new-born Glories that adorn thee;
"From every Blush, that kindles in thy Cheeks,
Ten thousand little Loves, and Graces spring,
To revel in the Roses" . . .

2. To His Mistress, Objecting to Him ~ Robert Herrick (1591 - 1674)

You say I love not, 'cause I do not play
Still with your curls, and kiss the time away.
You blame me, too, because I can't devise
Some sport, to please those babies in your eyes;
"By Love's religion, I must here confess it,
The most I love, when I the least express it."
Shall griefs find tongues; full casks are ever found
To give, if any, yet but little sound.
Deep waters noiseless are; and this we know,
That chiding streams betray small depth below.
So when love speechless is, she doth express
A depth in love, and that depth bottomless.
Now, since my love is tongueless, know me such,
Who speak but little, 'cause I love so much.

3. The Lady's Yes ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806 - 1861)

"Yes!" I answered you last night;
"No!" this morning, Sir, I say!
Colours, seen by candle-light,
Will not look the same by day.

When the tabors played their best,
Lamps above, and laughs below —
Love me sounded like a jest,
Fit for Yes or fit for No!

Call me false, or call me free —
Vow, whatever light may shine,
No man on your face shall see
Any grief for change on mine.

Yet the sin is on us both —
Time to dance is not to woo —
Wooer light makes fickle troth —
Scorn of me recoils on you!

"Learn to win a lady's faith
Nobly, as the thing is high;
Bravely, as for life and death —
With a loyal gravity.

Lead her from the festive boards,
Point her to the starry skies,
Guard her, by your truthful words,
Pure from courtship's flatteries."

By your truth she shall be true —
Ever true, as wives of yore —
And her Yes, once said to you,
SHALL be Yes for evermore.

[4.] The final stanza, as written out by Uncle Will is actually the opening stanza of another poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning:

"A Man's Requirements": "Love me Sweet, with all thou art,
Feeling, thinking, seeing;
Love me in the lightest part,
Love me in full being."

****************

Happy 160th Birthday Uncle Will!
What a privilege it is to honor your request from so long ago:

"Remember me if this you see
When I am far away and gone . . . "

The Miller Family

My Great - great Grandparents
Henry Wise Miller
(May 27, 1834 ~ October 29, 1915)
&
Elizabeth Birkinbine Miller
(February 28, 1938 ~ March 28, 1925)

& their children, standing back row L to R:

Alice Elizabeth (1866 - 1946), Henry Kitzmiller (1860 - 1933),
William Birkinbine (1859 - 1893), Anna Mary (1862 - 1923),
between his parents is the youngest, Jacob George (1870 - 1936)
& not pictured is eldest sister Celestial Rebecca (1858 - 1936)

Next Fortnightly Post
Wednesday, July 14

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Signs, Symbols, Souvenirs

BUNTING ON THE FRONT DOOR
WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Happy Flag Day!
~ As seen on Amazon ~

"Within the operation of the souvenir, the sign functions not so much as object to object, but beyond this relation, metonymically, as object to event / experience. The ribbon may be metonymic to the corsage, but the corsage is in turn metonymic to an increasingly abstract, and hence increasingly 'lost,' set of referents: the gown, the dance, the particular occasion, the particular spring, all springs, romance, etc.

" . . . the souvenir . . . will still exist as a sample of the now - distanced experience, an experience which the object can only evoke and resonate to and can never entirely recoup" (136).

from On Longing:
Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic,
the Souvenir, the Collection
by Susan Stewart [previously]

Sorting through my grandparents' belongings, I felt the truth of Stewart's words when I came across dozens of funeral ribbons. Many of them are inscribed, in my grandfather's handwriting, with names, dates, and other small notations pertaining to the deceased. In the case of these memorial ribbons, the "lost referent" is so much more than the particular event. Every ribbon evokes not only a long - ago funeral, wake, or graveside service but also the entire life span of each and every loved one represented. Truly, as Stewart observes, the souvenir in this case can evoke but never recoup the distant experience of a completed human life.

In her essay "Language and Thought," American philosopher Susanne K. Langer (1895 – 1985) provides this insightful distinction: "The difference between a sign and a symbol is, in brief, that a sign causes us to think or act in face of the thing signified, whereas a symbol causes us to think about the thing symbolized':

"To us who are human, it -- i.e., 'purely sign using' -- does not sound very glorious. We want to go places and do things, own all sorts of gadgets that we do not absolutely need, and when we sit down to take it easy we want to talk. Rights and property, social position, special talents and virtues, and above all our ideas, are what we live for. . . . because we can use not only signs but symbols.

"A symbol differs from a sign in that it does not announce the presence of the object, the being, condition, or whatnot, which is its meaning, but merely brings this thing to mind. . .symbols . . . call up . . . a conception of the thing they 'mean.'

" . . . Because we have not only the ability but the constant need of conceiving what has happened to us, what surrounds us, what is demanded of us . . . our hopes and fears . . . Our whole reaction depends on how we manage to conceive the situation . . . we must construe the events of life." [emphasis in original]

This is what the dried flowers and ribbons do; they "bring to mind" the deceased, and the loss, and the passage of time. Beyond reminding us of the day of mourning, they help us conceive what has happened to us and those around us. They represent our hopes and, particularly in the face of death, our fears. Langer says that "what we cannot conceive is chaos, and fills us with terror." To restore order, we construe a narrative of death and remembrance. In addition to what we can remember (or not), every souvenir ccontributes to that narrative. All the funeral mementoes, prayer cards, program leaflets and newspaper clippings are samples, symbols of the dearly departed.

In Jennifer Saint's recent novel Ariadne, the character Dionysus beautifully conveys his understanding of human mortality. Despite his power and immortality, he wonders, just as we do:

"Why mortals bloomed like flowers and crumbled to nothing. Why their absence left a gnawing ache, a hollow void that could never be filled. And how everything they once were, that spark within them, could be extinguished so completely yet the world did not collapse under the weight of so much pain and grief. . . . I have felt the gaping wound and the bruised, ragged edges of grief. I know that human life shines more brightly because it is but a shimmering candle against an eternity of darkness, and it can be extinguished with the faintest breeze" (176 - 79).

I fanned the collection of funeral ribbons into a colorful arc and perceived them not as signs, referring "to actual situations, in which things have obvious relations to each other that require only to be noted" but as symbols, referring "to ideas, which are not physically there for inspection, so their connections and features have to be represented" (Langer, emphasis added). Thanks to the writing of Susan Stewart, Susanne K. Langer, and Jennifer Saint, I was able to see each preserved ribbon as the souvenir of a shimmering candle, a shining spark of human life that had been dear to those before me, whether I knew them or not.

[For more from Langer, see Safe Home & Dreamscape]

Next Fortnightly Post
Monday, June 28

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts ~ Hello Vaca! ~
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading ~ Ariadne ~
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com