OL. E. D. BAKER, ORATOR, POET. SOLDIER, AND STATESMAN. 
 
-H OREGON N- 
 
 LITERATURE 
 
 JOHN B. HORNER, fl. M., LITT. D., 
 
 Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature in 
 the State Agricultural College of Oregon. 
 
 Take the wings 
 
 Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness, 
 Or lose thyself in the continuous woods 
 Where rolls the Oregon .... 
 
 BRYANT : Thanatopsis. 
 
 CORVALLIS : 
 
 MDCCCXCIX 
 
II 
 
 MAID 
 
 COPYRIGHT 1899 BY J. B. HORNER. 
 
TO A FRIEND. 
 
 " What is a book ? Let affection tell; 
 A tongue to speak for those ivho absent dwell, 
 A language uttered to the eye 
 Which envious distance would in vain deny. 
 
 "Formed to convey like an electric chain 
 The mystic flashes, the lightning of the brain, 
 And thrill at once to its remotest link 
 The throb of passion by the printer's ink.' 1 ' 1 
 
 JOHN BURNETT, 
 
 Corvallis, July 7, 1899. 
 
 509 
 
BRECON has produced more genuine litera- 
 ture during the short period of her history, 
 extending back only fifty years, than all the thir- 
 teen American colonies wrote in a century and 
 half. Notwithstanding this fact, she is the oldest 
 state in the Union that has not collated the best 
 things written by her sons and daughters. This 
 task has been delayed merely for want of time 
 and inclination. No one did it, so I undertook it. 
 This is the explanation. 
 
 Kindly attribute the objectionable features of 
 this pamphlet to the youngest printer in the office. 
 
 J. B. H. 
 
%iterature. 
 
 Long ago the scholars of the East passed the 
 lamp of learning from England westward to Boston, 
 the front door of America. And from Boston the 
 lamp lighted the way of the pioneer across moun- 
 tain chains, mighty rivers, and far-reaching plains, 
 till the radiance of its beams skirted the golden 
 shores of our majestic ocean. Then it was that 
 the song of the poet and the wisdom of the sage 
 for the first time blended in beautiful harmony with 
 the songs of the robin, the lark, and the linnet, of 
 our valley. These symphonies floated along on 
 zephyrs richly laden with aromas fresh from the 
 field and flowers and forests, and were wafted 
 heavenward with the prayers of the pioneer to 
 mingle forever in adoration to the God of the land 
 and the sea. This was the origin and the begin- 
 ning of Oregon literature. 
 
 INFLUENCE OF PIONEER LIFE. 
 
 A fearless people among savages, the Oregon 
 pioneers surmounted every obstacle, for they had 
 graduated from the hard training school of the 
 plains and had suffered severe discipline known 
 only to the early settler. Hon. George H. Wil- 
 liams, attorney-general of President Grant's cab- 
 inet, said: "When the pioneers arrived here they 
 
OREGON LITERATURE. 
 
 found a land of marvelous beauty. They found ex- 
 tended prairies, with luxuriant verdure. They 
 found grand and gloomy forests, majestic rivers, 
 and mountains covered with eternal snow; but they 
 found no friends to greet them, no homes to go 
 to, nothing but the genial heavens and the gener- 
 ous earth to give them consolation and hope. I 
 cannot tell how they lived; nor how they supplied 
 their numerous wants of family life. All these 
 things are mysteries to everyone, excepting to 
 those who can give their solution from actual ex- 
 perience." But of this one thing be assured, under 
 these trying circumstances, life with them grew to 
 be real, earnest, and simple. They were fearless, 
 yet God-fearing; no book save the Bible, Walker's 
 dictionary, Pilgrim's Progress, and a few others 
 of like sort; solid books, solid thought, solid men 
 three elements that enter into substantial liter- 
 ature. 
 
 A recent number of the ''Daily Oregonian" tells 
 us that the original type of the Oregon pioneer 
 began his career with the settlement of New Eng- 
 land4n 1620, and he ended it when he reached the 
 Pacific. It took him about 250 years to conquer 
 nature and the Indian from the Atlantic to the 
 Pacific. The Oregon pioneer in his deeds outran 
 even the prophetic vision of the great American 
 novelist who left him in Nebraska struggling on his 
 way along the Platte, and today Nebraska is ten 
 years younger in statehood than Oregon because 
 
OREGON LITERATURE. 
 
 the Pacific, found time to turn around and form a 
 state. The sterling merit of the Oregon pioneers 
 of the '405 may be measured from the fact that 
 the Oregonian who went to California on the dis- 
 covery of gold in 1848-49 included a number of 
 men, like Peter Burnett, who obtained honorable 
 distinction in the history of California. The gold 
 fever swept a vast immigration of all sorts to Cal- 
 ifornia within a few months, but as a whole it was 
 far inferior in mental and moral quality to the men 
 who laid the foundations of our great state. 
 
 Immigration steadily increased and the settle- 
 ments gradually grew, so that all the woods and 
 all the valleys became peopled. Only the bravest 
 dared to undertake the long journey across the 
 plains, and only the wisest and the strongest sur- 
 vived; hence Oregon was early peopled with the 
 strongest, the wisest and the bravest of the new 
 race. And while there may have been no Moses, 
 no Caesar, no Cromwell among them, there was 
 a large sprinkling of such men as Joe Meek, Gray 
 the historian, United States Senator Nesmith, 
 Governor Abernethy, General Joseph Lane, Doc- 
 tor Laughlin, and Applegate, the sage of Yon- 
 colla men with warm hearts, teeming brains, 
 skillful hands, and sinewy arms. And the women 
 were the daughters of the women who came in the 
 Mayflower, and they were like unto them. They 
 spun and wove, and in any home you might have 
 seen a Priscilla with her wheel and distaff as of old. 
 
OREGON LITERATURE. 
 
 And, although the legends of our Aldens and 
 Priscillas remain as yet unwritten and unsung, our 
 own proud Oregon will some day raise up a Long- 
 fellow that will place these treasures- among the 
 classics of the age. 
 
 INFLUENCE OP SCENERY. 
 
 Critics tell us that literature is rather an image 
 of the spiritual world, than of the physical of the 
 internal, rather than the external that mountains, 
 lakes, and rivers, are after all only its scenery and 
 decorations, not its substance and essence. And it 
 is true that a man will not necessarily be a great 
 poet because he lives at the foot of a great moun- 
 tain a Hood, a Jefferson, or a Shasta; nor being 
 a poet, that he will write better poems than others 
 because he lives where he can hear the thundering 
 falls of the mighty Willamette. "Switzerland is all 
 mountains; yet like the Andes, or the Himalayas, 
 or the Mountains of the Moon in Africa, it has 
 produced no extraordinary poet." But, while 
 mountains, rivers, and valleys, do not create genius, 
 no one can deny that they aid in developing it. 
 Emerson tells us that "the charming landscape he 
 saw one morning is undubitably made up of some 
 twenty of thirty farms. Miller owns this field, 
 Lock that, and Manning the woodland beyond, but 
 none of them owns the landscape. There is a 
 property in the horizon which no man has but he 
 whose eye can integrate all the parts that is the 
 
OREGON LITERATURE. 
 
 poet." The poet is the only millionaire that is 
 wealthy enough to purchase a landscape. Yet, no 
 man or woman with the least poetic impulse can 
 entirely escape and resist the inspiring influences 
 of luxuriant vegetation, baln^y air, and delightful 
 scenery. With a state draine/i on the north by the 
 mighty Columbia, measured on the east by rivers 
 and prairies and gold, guarded on the south by the 
 sky-kissed Siskiyous, bathed on the west by the 
 sunset seas; a state dotted here and there by the 
 everlasting peaks the sentinels of the world bound 
 together with great mountain chains, reveling in 
 delightful valleys beautifully tessalated with charm- 
 ing traceries crystal streams winding like silvery 
 threads from the glaciers far above as if seeking 
 the violets, the daisies, and the witcheries of the 
 lowlands, ours is not the scenery that makes war- 
 riors and bandits, but it is the taming, refining, 
 elevating influence of the milder, gentler, environ- 
 ments peculiar to our land environments that 
 will in the coming days produce a literature most 
 admired for the gentleness of its sentiment and the 
 grace of its art. With us the perfection of the 
 literary art will attain its zenith in approximating 
 the perfection of the sweet nature and rich land- 
 scapes about us. 
 
 INFLUENCE OF SONG. 
 
 Our fathers were a busy, active people, but they 
 had their times for rest; and during these restful 
 
10 OREGON LITERATURE. 
 
 hours they found much solace in song. The violin 
 was their only piano. They listened to its music 
 and they danced to its notes; and those, who did 
 not think it wicked, sang with it. They did not 
 all have time to read books, and many of them 
 did not know how; but they could all sing, and 
 they found time for this recreation; and they sang 
 more in their homes and in their fields than they 
 do now. If at no other time, they sang on their 
 way to and from labor; and every home became a 
 sort of musical conservatory. They had traveled 
 far, and reached their earthly Canaan; and now 
 they were singing of the Canaan beyond, drink- 
 ing in the poetry that flowed like the milk and 
 honey of the land that they had found. 
 
 And it is probable that the men and the women 
 and the children who sing the good songs thrill- 
 ing the world with their melodies exert as great 
 an influence in touching the popular heart and in 
 inspiring the nobler sentiments of humanity as do 
 the men and the women who write the good songs; 
 and the men and women who write the good songs 
 do as much to develop the nation as they who 
 write the good laws. The singers, therefore, some 
 way or other are just back of the good laws of the 
 country. In the days when there were no news- 
 papers, nor magazines, and books were few, the 
 Davids, the Homers, and the Alfreds, went about 
 singing patriotic songs to the people; and thus, 
 through the art of song, patriotism became a part 
 
OREGON LITER A TURE. 
 
 of national life. Away down the ages their chil- 
 dren's children came to the shores of Oregon with 
 a new song upon their lips; and young men from 
 every community representing many of the best 
 families of our state have responded to the na- 
 tion's call, and they have sung the new song and 
 carried a message of liberty to the down-trodden 
 nations in the far-away isles of the unknown seas. 
 In the days of the pioneer, every community had 
 its singing school. They selected from their num- 
 ber a leader, and sang from some of those old col- 
 lections of musical gems, such as the "Carrnina 
 Sacra," the "New Lute of Zion," the "Harmony," 
 the "Triumph," the "Key Note," "Golden Wreath," 
 the "Revivalist," and others. Some of the best 
 books were written in the old square-note system 
 so the people could slowly speH their way through 
 the music. Have you heard those songs "The 
 Land of Canaan," "I Belong to the Band, Halle- 
 lujah," "Mary to the Savior's Tomb," "Jesus Lover 
 of My Soul," "The World Will Be on Fire," "I 
 Want to Be an Angel," "There Is a Happy Land," 
 "Work for the Night is Coming," and scores 
 of others, among which were the national odes? 
 Such gatherings such music! The singers always 
 looked forward to the day when they could join in 
 song. Sometimes the leader stumbled a little, 
 for the singing* was more spirited than classical; 
 but the songs were few, and they learned them 
 well and they have been singing them ever since. 
 
12 OREGON LITERATURE. 
 
 Some of that band have gone to join the choir im- 
 mortal where they will chant blessed songs forever- 
 more amidst an array of angelic hosts. Others 
 whose lives were influenced by those songs have 
 been spared a little longer; yet the meeting will 
 be bye and bye, and they'd like to think that they 
 could take those dear old songs along with them. 
 They love to hear them during hours of joy, dur- 
 ing prosperity, and during hours of sickness; and, 
 what is more comforting and consoling in that 
 darkest of hours than one of those dear old songs? 
 A little midget in a home was piping one of those 
 songs; and I could not help but think that a half 
 century had rolled by since a master trained the 
 tuneless voices heard then among men; and I 
 wished he were still here that he might listen to 
 the little one sing. Then he could see that he had 
 taught better than he knew, for he taught an un- 
 born generation to sing; and thus he tuned their 
 hearts to sweeter, softer, gentler strains. Those 
 songs have softened the soul and sweetened the 
 literature of Oregon, for they have become a part of 
 of Oregon life. 
 
 THE BEAUTIFUL WILLAMETTE. 
 
 I sometimes think the muse that first sung the 
 "Beautiful Willamette," that poem which was set 
 to the gliding movement, waltz-like measure, and 
 rippling music of our poetic river was inspired by 
 the spirit of those beautiful songs the songs of 
 
OREGON LITERATURE. 13 
 
 long ago the songs whose voices have long been 
 stilled. 
 
 Every great poem has an experience back of it; 
 this will explain why many of the immortal songs 
 are the out-growth of war. While the author of 
 the "Beautiful Willamette" may have never been 
 able to recall the particular event that brought out 
 all his poetic energies in this special instance, yet 
 there was an event and that event was followed by 
 an experience; and the poem relates it in the notes 
 of its song. Just what it was I know not, but 
 some day there will appear upon the stage of lit- 
 erary achievement a penetrating, discriminating, 
 discerning intellect that will fathom the full mean- 
 ing of the poem, and read the secret to the world. 
 However, one who poses not as a philosopher or 
 sage, but who has studied the poem carefully, 
 could imagine that the author might have caught 
 sight of the great, winding sheet of water and, 
 overcome with its smoothness and beauty at 
 once contrasted the placid river with his turbulent 
 life. At this moment came the spirit of the old 
 songs floating along in rhythmic measures upon 
 the music of the waters and the poet sat down 
 and wrote these immortal lines: 
 
 "Onward ever, 
 Lovely river, 
 
 Softly calling to the sea; 
 Time, that scars us, 
 
14 OREGON LITERATURE. 
 
 Maims and mars us, 
 Leaves no track or trench on thee." 
 
 No wonder that Samuel L. Simpson, the Edgar 
 Poe of Oregon, sane to the world 
 
 THE BEAUTIFUL WILLAMETTE. 
 
 From the Cascades' frozen gorges, 
 
 Leaping like a child at play, 
 Winding, widening through the valley 
 Bright Willamette glides away; 
 Onward ever, 
 Lovely river, 
 
 Softly calling to the sea; 
 Time, that scars us, 
 Maims and mars us, 
 Leaves no track or trench on thee. 
 
 Spring's green witchery is weaving 
 
 Braid and border for thy side; 
 Grace forever haunts thy journey, 
 
 Beauty dimplesi on thy tide; 
 Through the purple gates of morning, 
 
 Now thy roseate ripples dance, 
 Golden then, when day, departing, 
 
 On thy waters trails his lance. 
 (Notice the music of the old song.) 
 Wajtzing, flashing, 
 Tinkling, splashing, 
 Limpid, volatile, and free 
 
SAM L. SIMPSON. 
 
OREGON LITERATURE. * 15 
 
 Always hurried 
 To be buried 
 In the bitter, moon-mad sea. 
 
 In thy crystal deeps inverted 
 Swings ~a picture of the sky. 
 Like those wavering hopes of "Aidenn, 
 
 Dimly in our dreams that lie; 
 Clouded often, drowned in turmoil, 
 
 Faint and lovely, far away 
 Wreathing- sunshine on the morrow, 
 Breathing fragrance round "to-day. 
 Love would wander 
 Here and ponder, 
 
 Hither poetry would dream; 
 Life's old questions, 
 Sad suggestions, 
 "Whence and whither?" throng thy streams. 
 
 On the roaring waste of ocean 
 
 Soon thy scattered waves shall toss, 
 'Mid the surges' rhythmic thunder 
 Shall thy silver tongues; be lost. 
 Oh! thy glimmering rush of gladness 
 
 Mo'cks this turbid life of mine, 
 Racing to the wild Forever 
 Down the sloping paths of Time. 
 Onward ever, 
 Lovely river, 
 Softly calling to the sea; 
 
16 OREGON LITERATURE. 
 
 Time, that scars us, 
 Maims and mars us, 
 Leaves no track or trench on thee. 
 
 If for no other reason than that it breathes the 
 spirit of its noble ancestry the songs of long ago 
 the "Beautiful Willamette" is destined to be one 
 of the surviving gems of American literature. 
 Every state must sing a song; and, in the ab- 
 sence of a state song that will rank as a classic, 
 Oregonians may be content to sing of their most 
 beautiful river. The "Beautiful Willamette" will be 
 memorized by children, by toilers, and sweet sing- 
 ers; and, although it may be a hundred years be- 
 fore it will fully catch the national ear, it will 
 rank with some of the sweetest lines yet written by 
 any American. 
 
 THE CAMPMEETING. 
 
 When Bryant wrote "The groves were God's first 
 temples," he must have been thinking of the old 
 camp-meeting grounds those theological institu- 
 tions located throughout the West where men 
 heard some of the sweetest eloquence that has never 
 been recorded in book or magazine. At a time, 
 when the camp-meeting would not conflict with 
 sowing and reaping, people met and mingled and 
 their hearts were mellowed with the word of God 
 as they heard it preached from revelation and 
 read it in the volume of nature spread out before 
 
OREGON LITERATURE. 17 
 
 them. The preachers who interpreted these les- 
 sons were Fowler, Hines, Hill, Kennoyer, Conner, 
 Driver, Elledge, and others precious to the mem- 
 ories of many who under their instructions have 
 rejoiced to see within our own valley the dewy 
 rose of Sharon bud midst showers of blessings, 
 and blossom 'neath the sunshine of Heaven. 
 
 When a man fails to solve a difficult problem 
 with his head he instinctively undertakes to solve 
 it with his heart. Accordingly this was a season 
 of heart culture especially needed by those who 
 had wrestled with the difficulties incident to pio- 
 neer life such difficulties as no one but the im- 
 migrant, the pioneer, or the soldier, can fully 
 understand. It was the great social and religious 
 meeting place of the people, and it grew to be a 
 part of pioneer life. But, in the course ol time, 
 when the pioneers began to pass away, the camp- 
 meeting gradually came to be a place hallowed only 
 in memory and in religious literature. 
 
 The ancients who learned to worship the trees 
 told us that eloquence belongs only to the gods and 
 the groves. With such magnificent groves along 
 our templed hills, we might have easily become 
 druids or tree worshippers like them; but instead, 
 we have cultivated the thought and developed the 
 themes that will yet flower out into a literature not 
 unlike that of the old time camp-meeting disser- 
 tation. 
 
18 OREGON LITER A TURE. 
 
 PULPITEERS. 
 
 Much wisdom and eloquence was voiced and 
 penned by the pioneer pulpiteers among whom 
 were: Dr. Marcus Whitman, Father Eels, Wilson 
 Blain, James H. Wilbur, Jason Lee, S. G. Irvine, 
 Josiah L. Parrish, A. L. Lindsey, William Rob- 
 erts, Father Blanchet, Thomas H. Pearne, Alvin 
 F. Waller, Thomas Kendall, James Worth, George 
 H. Atkinson, Gustavus Hines, Harvey K. Hines, 
 Edward R. Geary, B. Wistar Morris, Thomas Con- 
 don, Dr. Elliot, and others; besides the visiting 
 bishops Simpson, Glosbrenner, Scott, Morris, 
 Marvin, Weaver, Castle, Bowman, Foster and 
 other great lights who always brought new tidings 
 and gave fresh inspiration to pulpit oratory in 
 the science of sciences, the ology of ologies the- 
 ology. These influences have quickened the pul- 
 pit and given fresh inspiration to every form of 
 literary effort, from the humblest essay in the pub- 
 lic school to the crowning efforts in parliamentary 
 forensic and sacred oratory. 
 
 Then there was another class of ministers who 
 wielded an influence on religious thought in the 
 earlier days, one of whom it may not be out of 
 place to mention at this time. 
 
 THE OLD-FASHIONED PREACHER. 
 
 Someone, somewhere, some day, I know not 
 when, guided by a certain instinct which deter- 
 mines worth and discriminates between men, will 
 
OREGON LITER A TURE. 
 
 look above and beyond schools and art and rich 
 attire to find one of Nature's noblemen; and then 
 will sit down and write the life of Joab Powell, 
 whose utterances were like those of Henry Clay's 
 spoken for the occasion and not for the future. 
 There are those who on account of their individ- 
 uality rise so far above conventionalism that we 
 forget their titles and think of them solely as men. 
 We say Socrates, Virgil, Ossian, Milton, Demos- 
 thenes; for no title can add lustre to their names. 
 How refreshing would sound Rev. Peter, Dr. 
 James, or Elder John, of sacred lore. So in our 
 land there have been those in whom we at once 
 recognize and revere the man: as Roger Williams, 
 Lorenzo Dow and Peter Cartwright; and, in the 
 farther West, Jason Lee, Father Newton and Joab 
 Powell. These untitled messengers carried the 
 gospel of higher civilization when the track of 
 the wagon and the iron horse was but the dim 
 trail of the Indian and the pioneer; and it be- 
 hooves the rising generation to repeat and record 
 their words of wisdom ere all they have said will 
 be effaced except some trite tale unworthy of a 
 listening ear. 
 
 THE 6IBLE. 
 
 In each wagon of the long immigrant trains that 
 came into our valley might have been found a 
 certain book plain book precious book book of 
 books the Bible; and the most indifferent some- 
 
20 OREGON LITERATURE. 
 
 times perused its pages. In England, John Bun- 
 yan read the Bible until his language grew to be 
 the language of the Bible, as may be seen in the 
 "Pilgrim's Progress," an allegory in which human 
 thought arose on angelic wings and took on the 
 robes of Holy Writ. In Oregon a large majority 
 of the people have been Bible-readers; and the 
 ratio has been steadily increasing; hence the Bible 
 element or Saxon element bids fair to grow in 
 prominence in the language of our people. Fur- 
 thermore, the experience and the culture of our 
 people tend to mellow the feelings and warm the 
 hearts of the masses and bring about a constantly 
 growing demand for the language of the heart, the 
 language of sentiment and sense, the language of 
 those who use the best vehicle of expression in 
 talking direct from the heart to a point. 
 
 CLIMATIC INFLUENCE. 
 
 It is an indisputable fact that climate has always 
 exerted an influence upon a truly great literature, 
 and there are those who believe they have already 
 noticed marked indications of climatic influence 
 upon what has been written in our state; and they 
 pretend to believe that this influence will continue 
 in its development so that it will be more notice- 
 able and more influential as the years go by. 
 
 It is known that in an extreme temperature the 
 best intellectual results are seldom attained. Hu- 
 man energies are exhausted in the effort to sus- 
 
FIRST PRINTING PRESS ON THE PACIFIC COAST. 
 
 (On this press was printed the Oregon City "Spectator," February 5, 1846 
 
 the first newspaper west of the Missouri River ) 
 
OREGON LITER A TURE. 21 
 
 tain life; hence we do not expect great books and 
 intellectual triumphs to come from those who re- 
 ceived their growth in the torrid or in the frigid 
 zones. It has also been observed that those cli- 
 mates, in which it is too easy to obtain a liveli- 
 hood, impede intellectual progress. It has, therefore, 
 been believed that no stirring thought will come 
 from the nations of equatorial Africa nor from our 
 cherished Philippines. In these lands, those who 
 have palaces leave them to live in groves, gon- 
 dolas, chariots, theaters, fashionable clubs, popular 
 resorts, the racing circle, and the bull-fight ring; 
 everything succumbs to pleasure, until pleasure be- 
 comes licentious in its influence an influence 
 which is never truly literary. Accordingly, we 
 look to the more temperate climes for literary 
 achievement at its zenith and human endeavor in 
 its glory; and men of attainment have come to 
 believe that Oregon, which is centrally located as 
 to mildness of temperature will produce a superior 
 literature; and that it has two distinct climates, 
 each of which is favorable to the growth and de- 
 velopment of a particular literature, peculiarly pure, 
 perspicuous and powerful. 
 
 Of the Saxon motherland the scholarly Taine 
 said, "Thick clouds hover above, being fed by 
 thick exhalations. They lazily turn their flanks, 
 grow dark, and descend in showers; oh, how 
 easily." Is not that Western Oregon? The Sax- 
 ons of Europe have left their climate to find a sim- 
 
22 OREGON LI TERA T URE. 
 
 ilar climate here. The western Oregonian should, 
 therefore, be the true type, the typical Saxon of 
 the century that is about to dawn. This is not 
 boasting, but prophecy. Indeed, this is a foggy 
 land with its seasons of sombre scenery, where 
 moss is not uncommon, and the gray mists creep 
 under a stratum of motionless vapor. While East- 
 ern Oregon is a land of sunshine and lofty skies, 
 where silently float great gleaming bars of steel, 
 and silver, and gold, until, perchance, they are 
 disturbed by the bolts of Jove that come booming 
 o'er the mountain into the valley below. All na- 
 ture is suddenly quickened; and the people have, 
 instead of the gentle shower that floats in on the 
 heavy atmosphere of the sea coast, the drenching 
 rain of the highland clouds that were torn loose 
 by the thunderbolt and their waters spilled 
 upon parching grain and thirsting herds. In the 
 one the air is purified by the gentle, falling rain- 
 drops; in the other by the swift, sweeping showers 
 from the thundercloud. Observe the effect of this 
 upon the life of those dwelling in these different 
 sections. Notice the difference between the meas- 
 ured tread of the one and the quick step of the 
 other, as well as the habits of thought of the two 
 peoples. 
 
 Then there will always be as marked difference 
 between the literature of Eastern Oregon and the 
 literature of Western Oregon as if they were two 
 different states on two different coasts. Think of 
 
OREG ON LITER A T URE. 23 
 
 our humid atmosphere washed and kept pure by 
 the Webfoot rain did rain, does rain, will rain; 
 gentle rain; rain that comes like a huge joke, ever 
 welcome, ever-abundant, and never-failing rain; 
 rain that shortens the days, lengthens the nights, 
 and houses the people, domesticating men who 
 ordinarily grow wild and rough in the free light, 
 exhilarating sunshine of the higher altitudes. A 
 heavy, languid, drowsy atmosphere; hence slow 
 thinkers; slower to plan, slow to decide, slow 
 to act, a people not unlike the Saxons of old, their 
 senses will become blunted, the muscles braced, 
 and the will vigorous. There will be a certain 
 earnestness leading from frivolous sentiments to 
 noble ones severe manners, grave inclinations, 
 and manly dignity. The western Oregonian will 
 be domesticated per force of circumstances. An 
 indoor plant, a reader of books, a student of indoor 
 ethics. The eastern Oregonian will be an outdoor 
 plant; sallying out from beneath his roof to bathe 
 himself in the summer sunshine and inure himself 
 to the severe atmosphere and draw his inspirations 
 from the bold landscapes, solid clouds that stretch 
 away like great gleaming bars of bronze and gold. 
 A bold man, a brave man, a courageous man, a 
 cultured man, nature's man. 
 
 Inasmuch as the climate of Western Oregon is 
 somewhat tempered with the Japanese current, the 
 people who would be cut down untimely in a rug- 
 ged climate like that of Eastern Oregon naturally 
 
24 OREGON LITERATURE. 
 
 seek to prolong life by taking advantage of the 
 milder climate of Western Oregon. There will 
 always be more or less of those who find the win- 
 ters too severe in Eastern Oregon and they will, 
 therefore, spend the winter in Western Oregon. 
 Besides there will be a tendency to seek this resort 
 for those who are troubled with pulmonary troub- 
 les. Moreover in all this healthy valley will be 
 found a great number of imported pulmonary cases 
 cases that would be fatal without notice in East- 
 ern Oregon. Hence chronic ailments will com- 
 monly be found in this great hospital for the 
 afflicted. Look not, therefore, for those rugged 
 sayings in the literature of Western Oregon that 
 you might expect to find in the literature of East- 
 ern Oregon. 
 
 In Western Oregon there is much acid, little 
 lime; much fruit, yet little to neutralize it; the teeth 
 decay early, and there is but little bone material. 
 In Eastern Oregon there is less fruit and more 
 lime or bone-making material; hence, the genera- 
 tions growing there will develop larger bones and 
 frames. They will be bigger, consequently more 
 rugged. The people of Western Oregon will be 
 constructed on a frame-work of smaller bones; 
 they will, therefore, possess a more delicate nature 
 fine physique true enough, but they will not be 
 so strong and sturdy, hence more sensitive to 
 warmth and cold and, on this account, more sen- 
 sitive to feeling and sentiment. There promises to 
 
OREGON LITER A TURE. 25 
 
 be a whole-souled air in the literature of Eastern 
 Oregon somewhat after the Dryden type, while 
 finish and fine feeling of the Pope style will char- 
 acterize the literature of Western Oregon. 
 
 COLLEGE INFLUENCE. 
 
 The college influence must not be overlooked in 
 the study of literature. We are told that our na- 
 tional literature thrived only as the colleges of the 
 nation prospered. The great literature of our coun- 
 try is but the confluence of streams flowing out of 
 the fountain heads, Harvard, Yale, William and 
 Mary, and other great colleges of the nation. So 
 in our state there was the Oregon academy which 
 gradually developed into the University of Oregon 
 at Eugene, whence came the noted Joaquin Miller. 
 He may have written in the Sierras and sung of 
 their grandeur; he may have bowed to the muses 
 in the East; his soul may have been mellowed with 
 the sentiments of the vine-clad Italy, yet he is an 
 Oregon poet, simply a child away from home. 
 
 Pacific University, like Jupiter who conceived 
 Minerva full grown and complete, sent out as her 
 first graduate Harvey W. Scott, who is recognized 
 throughout the nation as a distinguished journalist 
 and critic. 
 
 History tells us that Washington Irving was the 
 first embassador from the new world to the old 
 the first American writer to obtain recognition on 
 the continent. So Bethel college, now known only 
 
26 OREGON LITERATURE. 
 
 in history, was the first institution in our state to 
 receive recognition from a great university in the 
 mother country. Dr. L. L. Rowland, Fellow of 
 the Royal Society of England, is a graduate of 
 Bethel college. 
 
 St. Mary's academy graduated Mrs. Irene Col- 
 braith, of McMinnville, whose poetical contribu- 
 tions have been sought by many of the best mag- 
 azines of our country. 
 
 Philomath college, in 1869, sent out Rev. Louis 
 A. Banks, who has written a score of volumes, oc- 
 cupied some of the wealthiest pulpits in the Meth- 
 odist Episcopal church, and who writes books that 
 are sought after by certain classes next to the writ- 
 ing of Talmage and Moody. 
 
 Willamette University gave to the literary world 
 the late Samuel L. Simpson, already mentioned as 
 the author of ''The Beautiful Willamette;'' and all 
 of our other colleges have contributed their share 
 to the literature of our state. 
 
 THE CHAUTAUQUA. 
 
 Along with these must not be forgotten the 
 influence of the largest institution that has been 
 organized within our borders The Willam- 
 ette Chautauqua Association of Gladstone Park. 
 This college of liberal arts has already imported 
 more light from the East, brought out more tal- 
 ent in the West, and given instruction to a greater 
 number of students in the things with which busy, 
 
OREG ON LI TERA TURE. 27 
 
 active men have to think and to do than has any 
 other influence in our state. 
 
 INFLUENCE OF NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINES. 
 
 The pioneers well remember the time when the 
 newspaper came in the semi-annual mail and was 
 ravenously devoured. They wanted to know about 
 the old folks at home, then afterwards came the 
 war and other national topics of importance. Har- 
 per's, Leslie's, and the more expensive current lit- 
 erature, found their way into many of the more 
 prosperous homes. A taste for literature and the 
 news was being awakened so that in a short time 
 the newspapers began to multiply; the monthlies 
 became weeklies; the weeklies, semi-weeklies; the 
 semi-weeklies dailies; and, if there are to be many 
 victories such as Dewey's, the people will rise up 
 en masse and demand an hourly bulletin. The 
 thirst for news and information on national ques- 
 tions will ever serve as a tonic to create a desire 
 for abundant reading, hence will produce a better 
 market for literature. 
 
 It is true we have not published many maga- 
 zines; but it is not for want of talent, or scenery, 
 or demand; we have simply not had the time and 
 we could get it done cheaper in the East than we 
 could hire it done in the West. But every one 
 remembers the "West Shore" whose pen was dipped 
 in poetry and whose brush was colored with the 
 tints of the rainbow; how it visited our homes and 
 
28 OREGON LITERATURE. 
 
 how eagerly it was sought by thousands of readers 
 throughout the nation. Among the greater jour- 
 nalists whom many of us have read since we were 
 children are H. W. Scott, the critic and editor of 
 the Oregonian; L. Samuels, of the West Shore; 
 Mrs. A. S. Duniway, champion of women's rights; 
 the trenchant Thomas B. Merry; and then there 
 were James O'Meara, A. Bush, W. L. Adams, S. 
 Pennoyer, S. A. Clarke, W. H. Odell, D. W. Craig, 
 A. Noltner, and others, whose number has in- 
 creased with the tide of immigration and the pro- 
 gress of our country. 
 
 PROGRESS AND LITERATURE. 
 
 But unrest develops character; quiet, talent; 
 and talent, literature. As grand as was the 
 time, and hence the deeds, and memorable the 
 lives, the pioneer days are over. Our homes 
 have been built, farms have been made, the 
 Indian has been tamed, churches have been 
 erected, schools are culturing the young; we 
 have passed through the home-building period 
 and entered into the home and social development 
 era, an era when men thinking men will have 
 an opportunity to sit down in the quiet of their 
 homes and reflect. There is already hardly a town 
 or a hamlet in our state that is not the seat of a 
 publishing establishment, preaching the gospel of 
 modern culture and literary progress. And in this 
 connection may be mentioned the Sabbath school 
 

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OREGON LITERATURE. 31 
 
 Holy Land." Jonathan Edwards' "Inquiry Into the 
 Freedom of the Will," written in 1754, was re- 
 garded as authority in metaphysics, but it never 
 was classed as literature. Then it may be re- 
 marked that they produced no songs or other 
 music of note, while our Francis, our DeMoss fam- 
 ily, our Heritage, our Parvin, our Yoder, and 
 scores of others have published songs, enjoyed and 
 sung from shore to shore, from sea to sea. They 
 had no great lawyers to strengthen their constitu- 
 tion by the wise interpretation of their laws, such 
 as we have had in Matthew P. Deady, W. Lair 
 Hill, Lafayette Lane, W. P. Lord, and others 
 who have graced the supreme bench of Oregon. 
 Modern journalism was then unknown; and a 
 Homer Davenport, with an annual income of $13,- 
 ooo the highest salary ever paid a cartoonist 
 was not to be found among men. 
 
 SOME OREGON BOOKS AND AUTHORS. 
 
 To summarize we have among the Oregon books 
 and authors: 
 
 POETRY. Joaquin Miller, Minnie Myrtle Mil- 
 ler, James G: Clark, Ella Higginson, Col. Baker, 
 Mrs. S. Hamilton, Samuel L. Simpson, H. H. 
 Woodward, Lilian Blanche Fearing. 
 
 SHORT POEMS OF MERIT. T. W. Daven- 
 port, John Minto. 
 
 HISTORY. W. H. Gray, H. K. Hines, Frances 
 
32 OREGON LITERATURE. 
 
 F. Victor, H. O. Lang, F. Rigler and J. Q. Thorn- 
 
 DESCRIPTION. Wallis Nash. 
 
 ORATORY. George H. Williams, Col. E. D. 
 Baker, Delazon Smith, United States Senator J. W. 
 Nesmith. 
 
 LAW. W. Lair Hill, L. F. Lane, W. P. Lord, 
 Matthew P. Deady. 
 
 JOURNALISM. Harvey W. Scott, P. S. 
 Knight, Harvey Goddon, L. Samuel, Mrs. A. S. 
 Duniway, Thos. B. Merry, James O'Meara, A. 
 Bush, W. L. Adams, S. Pennoyer, D. W. Craig, 
 S. A. Clarke, Mrs. C. A. Coburn, W. H. Odell. 
 
 THEOLOGY. Dr. T. L. Elliott, Lewis A. 
 Banks. 
 
 MATHEMATICS. Prof. Lilley. 
 ORTHOGRAPHY. Dr. Patterson. 
 
 MUSIC. Prof. A. L. Francis, Prof. Yoder, De- 
 Moss family, Prof. R. A. Heritage, Prof. Z. M. 
 Parvin. 
 
 ARTIST. Homer Davenport. 
 LECTURES. Dr. Thomas Condon. 
 
 PAMPHLETS AND BULLETINS. Histori- 
 cal, Agricultural, Mining, etc., etc. 
 
 Let us notice a few of these authors that have 
 been mentioned so prominently. 
 
LOUIS A. BANKS. 
 
OREG ON LITER A T VRE. 33 
 
 LOUIS ALBERT BANKS. 
 
 What good can come out of Nazareth? has been 
 answered again. From infancy to childhood, and 
 from childhood to the boy preacher of 16, we find 
 him in Oregon. Charles Parkhurst, the great 
 divine and reformer, says of him: "Louis Albert 
 Banks, after leaving Philomath college, com- 
 menced to preach the gospel in Washington terri- 
 tory, and many were converted. From 17 to 21, 
 he taught school and studied law, being admitted 
 to practice in the courts. He received his first 
 regular appointment from Bishop Gilbert Haven, 
 and was stationed in Portland, Oregon. Fearless 
 as a reformer, in his pulpit, he has been shot down 
 by the infuriated saloonist, and mobbed by the 
 anti-Chinese rioters." He has occupied some of 
 the wealthiest pulpits of the Methodist Episcopal 
 church in the United States where he has met with 
 remarkable success as a minister and as an author. 
 
 His principal books are Censor Echoes, the 
 People's Christ, the Revival Giver, White Slaves, 
 Common Folks' Religion, Honeycombs of Life, 
 the Heavenly Tradewinds, the Christ Dream, 
 Christ and His Friends, the Saloon Keeper's 
 Ledger, Seven Times Around Jericho, the Hero 
 Tales from Sacred History, an Oregon Boyhood, 
 Sermon Stories for Boys and Girls, the Christ 
 Brotherhood, Immortal Hymns and Their Story, 
 
34 OREGON LITER A TURE. 
 
 and he is under contract to write three other vol- 
 umes at the present time. 
 
 Dr. Banks' popularity as an author is such that 
 the great Reformer in writing an introduction to 
 one of these books said, "To be invited to a place 
 beside the author of the volume, and to present 
 him to the reading public, is a delightful privilege." 
 
 Mr. Banks' books and sermons may fitly be 
 termed "the Wild Flowers of Oregon," for he has 
 culled the lambs' tongue, the rhododendron, the 
 wild lilac, the field lily, the honeysuckle, and the wild 
 grape, and taken this handful of wild flowers from 
 the hills and valleys of Oregon and woven them 
 into beautiful sermons and books thus furnishing 
 a delightful source of help to thousands of men and 
 women on both continents. Indeed, his style may 
 be defined as the wild flowers of Oregon so deli- 
 cately transplanted from the mild atmosphere of 
 the West into the conservatories of the rigid East 
 that they have lost none of their original fragrance 
 or beauty. Thus, through Dr. Banks our scenery 
 has flowered out upon an eastern landscape and de- 
 veloped into a beautiful style which he may proud- 
 ly call his own; and while the scholars of the East 
 may notice the exotic elements in it they cannot 
 resist the pleasure it gives them; therefore, they 
 will encourage Dr. Banks in preserving his literary 
 identity in the fast flowing stream of books he is 
 pouring out upon the reading public. 
 
OREGON LITERATURE. 35 
 
 JOAOUIN MILLER. 
 
 The story of literary greatness is sometimes a 
 strange, but thrilling one. Genius has always its 
 charms. Its language has never yet been fully 
 written, its eloquence never been fully spoken. 
 Schliepmann, uncovering the marble upon which 
 Phidias and his followers carved out immortality 
 for themselves, has wrought more effectually and 
 more wonderfully than have some of the humbler 
 men of genius in these modern days. Upon his 
 canvas of stone, the unknown artist portrays for 
 us Herod's temple with its outer courts and col- 
 umns and its massive walls. Upon his canvas of 
 immortal vision, all athrill with poetic beauty and 
 inspiration, the obscure genius sometimes portrays 
 pictures of living thought and life pictures that 
 forever glow in the radiant glory of unfading light. 
 
 Thus it is that since the earliest stars in the 
 bright constellation of the western writers began 
 to appear, the reading public have been eagerly 
 scanning each new light conjecturing if perchance 
 it might not be a new planet a new luminary 
 brighter and more enduring than the mere flash 
 of a passing meteor or the dying spark of a falling 
 star. But those were pioneer times, pioneer man- 
 ners, and pioneer men even the infusion from the 
 East grew to be pioneer in strength of body, pio- 
 neer in vigor of intellect, and pioneer in passion 
 
36 OREGON LITERA TURE. 
 
 and fervor of imagination so that the whole west- 
 ern life came to be that bold, daring, dashing, ad- 
 venturous life, peculiar to the woodsman, the 
 gold hunter, the Indian fighter, the Pacific coast 
 pioneer. Hence it was but natural that there 
 should arise amidst these wild mountain scenes a 
 genius whose poetry is tropical in its profusion of 
 color, eastern in the glowing heat of its impetuous 
 passion, and western in its sincerity and wildness. 
 Schooled in the lore of the miner's camp, and sur- 
 rounded by scenes, wild, quaint and curious the 
 hill, the valley, the mountain gorge, the mighty 
 river, the warm path of the deer, the elk, the pan- 
 ther, the bear, and the savage poems of nature; 
 exalted with visions of lofty firs, towering forests, 
 and majestic mountains, whose music is softened 
 and sweetened with the rhythm of the gurgling 
 brook and the cadence of sighing boughs and 
 mountain zephyrs it is not surprising that a genius 
 like Joaquin Miller should suddenly appear and 
 attract attention on account of his strange back- 
 ground, rich coloring, gorgeous descriptions and 
 gigantic scenery. Nature and Burns and Byron 
 and Swinburne were his masters; and he learned 
 from them a certain wild freedom and passion of 
 song that have enriched his poems with truthful- 
 ness and an almost cloying sweetness of rhythm 
 and rhyme. Of the latter-day poets whose works 
 have become famous, the new world has produced 
 its full share. Whittier, Bryant, Longfellow, 
 
JOAQUIX MILLER, POET OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
OREGON LITERATURE. 
 
 Holmes, Lowell, and a score of others represent 
 the East, while Bret Harte, Col. Baker, Samuel L. 
 Simpson, Minnie Myrtle Miller, Ella Higginson, 
 and many others have caught and fixed the bright- 
 est tints of the western sunset, and sung sweet 
 melodies along the golden shores of the Pacific; 
 but among the first of the Western poets, and 
 superior to them all, is Oregon's adopted son, 
 Joaquin Miller, the subject of this sketch, he who 
 has said to the world: 
 
 "In men whom men condemn as ill 
 
 I find so much of goodness still, 
 
 In men whom men pronounce divine 
 
 I find so much of sin and blot, 
 
 I hesitate to draw a line 
 
 Between the two when God has not." 
 
 He has attracted more attention and provoked 
 more discussion than any other one of them all. 
 Adverse criticism no less than the praise he has 
 won marks him as a poet of no ordinary talent, 
 and insures him a lasting place in literature. Today 
 he can truly say to those who derided his earliest 
 efforts, as Joseph said to his brethren, "Ye thought 
 evil of me, but God meant it for good." They had 
 sold Joseph into slavery, but when they were hun- 
 gry, he gave them bread, and they were reconciled 
 unto each other; the poet, like Joseph, has given 
 his brethren bread when they were hungry. Will 
 .they not be reconciled unto him? 
 
OREGON LITER A TURK. 
 
 While traveling in California, recently, I could 
 not resist the temptation offered to visit the recluse 
 poet in his home at Oakland Heights, where he 
 dwells as Walt. Whitman and all true children of 
 nature love to dwell, surrounded by rural scenes, 
 in close communion with nature. The drive from 
 East Oakland to the Heights, a distance of two 
 miles, is beautiful in the extreme. Broad and 
 smooth, the road skirts 'a ravine and winds about 
 the hill: it is cool and refreshing, being shaded on 
 either side by Monterey Cyprus, eucalyptus, and 
 acacia trees. On arriving at the poet's home, the 
 first sight one gets of the man is furnished by the 
 home he has built for his mother. His father be- 
 ing long since dead, with loving hand the poet has 
 drawn his mother away from the more active strug- 
 gles of life to spend her remaining days with him 
 on the mountain near the clouds. Then the con- 
 servatory filled with choice flowers speaks of him 
 as a lover of nature, but the man the lover of 
 nature the poet himself was found in bed, in a 
 little cell whose dimensions and primitive simplic- 
 ity forcibly suggested the early settlement of the 
 coast. Although only 3 o'clock in the afternoon, 
 he had retired to rest, but received us most gra- 
 ciously without rising. I was invited to a seat on 
 the bed at his feet, while my wife occupied the 
 only chair in the room. Here was a man who had 
 received the hospitality of the most polished men 
 and women of Europe, a man who had been a 
 
OREGON LITERATURE. 
 
 welcome guest in the most magnificent dwellings 
 in the old world, a man whose attainments now 
 entitle him to a welcome to any society he may 
 enter, a man who had abandoned all to follow the 
 bent of his genius and to live with the primitive 
 surroundings of a pioneer, with wants as simple as 
 those of a child. 
 
 A survey of the apartment revealed a pair of 
 trousers and high-heeled boots suspended from 
 nails driven in the wall, an ancient bureau in one 
 corner, a horse-hide rug on the floor, and a straw 
 hat banded with a scarlet ribbon ornamenting one 
 of the high posts of the bed. Then the eye catches 
 a number of folded papers tacked to the wall above 
 the poet's head: these are letters received from 
 distinguished literary persons. And, last, we were 
 shown the photograph of an Indian maiden, daugh- 
 ter of Old John, chief of the Rogue Rivers, whose 
 subjugation in 1856 cost many lives and two mil- 
 lion dollars. There were no lamps, candles, or 
 books to be seen. The poet rises with the birds, 
 and with them he retires. He never burns "the 
 midnight oil" and complains that there are too 
 many books. He declares that men rely too much 
 on books; and that they are valued by the number 
 of books that they carry with them, whether or 
 not they know anything of nature or of nature's 
 God of whom books should speak. 
 
 Everything about the man is quaint, everything 
 around him is curious. The rug on the floor is 
 
40 OREGON LITERATURE. 
 
 said to be the skin of a faithful steed which carried 
 General Fremont across the plains in 1843. It has 
 been related, though we saw no evidence of it, 
 that he has a hose attached to a pipe from a spring 
 above the house in such a manner that he can 
 cause the water to fall in a shower on the roof 
 when he wants to write. If this be true, it must 
 be intended as a compliment to Oregon where it 
 rains so much, and where the poet's boyhood days 
 were spent. There seems to be nothing in him 
 like other men except his care for flowers and his 
 love for his mother. But the poet it is he of 
 whom we now speak once his lips move, and the 
 little room with its quaint furniture, bare floor, 
 walls and ceiling, disappear; and we stand with 
 bared brows beneath the broad canopy above, 
 while our ears are filled with the murmuring of 
 gurgling streams whose surface gives back 10 
 heaven the light of countless stars. Old words 
 take on new meaning; old thoughts stand forth 
 new born, and living waters follow every stroke. 
 We were interested in all he said, but time admon- 
 ished us to trespass no longer on his resting hours. 
 Reluctantly we said "good bye" and were glad our 
 road wound lingeringly around the hill so the 
 transition was less abrupt from the poet's ideal 
 world to the busy, bustling scenes of every-day 
 city life on the plain below; yet our thoughts were 
 still of the poet on the mountain where he is keep- 
 ing vigil, his ear filled with the low, sweet music 
 
OR EG ON L 1 TERA TURE. 
 
 of nature, while his eye catches visions from the 
 clouds which pass over his head. 
 
 His numerous works and particularly his recent- 
 ly published volume of poems, "The Songs of the 
 Soul," show him to be no idler. His spindle and 
 distaff are ever in his hand; he spins the flax God 
 sends, handing the threads down to his fellows on 
 the plain. May we not weave some of them into 
 the woof or warp of our lives? 
 
 On our return home Hon. George A. Waggoner, 
 an old schoolmate and friend of the poet, handed 
 me a sketch published in a Corvallis paper ten 
 years ago. In this, Mr. Waggoner, who has writ- 
 ten a volume that may yet add luster to Oregon 
 lore, speaks so beautifully and kindly of Joaquin 
 Miller as known among his associates before he 
 attempted to write, that we obtained permission to 
 insert the following extract: 
 
 "The first man I met among the fevered crowd 
 was Oregon's poet my old schoolmate Joaquin 
 Miller. His blue eyes sparkled with kindly greet- 
 ing, and, as I took his hand, I knew by its quick- 
 ening pulse and tightened clasp that he too was 
 sharing in the excitement of the gold hunter. He 
 was then in the first flush of manhood, with buoy- 
 ant spirits, untiring energy, and among a race of 
 hardy pioneers; the bravest of the brave. He 
 possessed more than ordinary talent and looked 
 forward with hope to the battle of life, expecting 
 to reap his share of its honors and rewards. For 
 
OREGON LITERATURE. 
 
 years he was foremost in every desperate enter- 
 prise crossing snow-capped mountains, swollen 
 rivers, and facing hostile Indians. When snow fell 
 fifteen feet deep on the Florence mountain, and 
 hundreds were penned in camp without a word 
 from wives, children, and loved ones at home, he 
 said: 'Boys, I will bring your letters from Lewis- 
 ton/ Afoot and alone, without a trail, he crossed 
 the mountain tops, the dangerous streams, the 
 wintry desert of Camas Prairie, fighting back the 
 hungry mountain wolves, and returned bending be- 
 neath his load of loving messages from home. 
 One day he was found in defence of the weak, 
 facing the pistol or bowie knife of the desperado; 
 and the next day he was washing the clothes and 
 smoothing the pillow of a sick comrade. We all 
 loved him, but we were not men who wrote for 
 the newspaper or magazine, and his acts of hero- 
 ism and kindness were unchronicled save in the 
 hearts of those who knew him in those times, and 
 under those trying circumstances. He is of earth's 
 first blood, but has seen a life of sorrow and dis- 
 appointment. He has struggled with poverty and 
 unfavorable circumstances, yet through all he has 
 been true to his own land. He has wooed his 
 muse, and tuned his lyre across the great waters; 
 but he sang of his boyhood scenes, of the Pacific 
 coast, its great rivers, mountains, and men, and 
 has been true to them all. He poetized the gran- 
 deur of our land so nobly as to electrify all Europe, 
 
OR EG ON L I TE !-,'A T UR E. 
 
 the swelling notes of his praise echoing and re- 
 echoing until they have reached our ears from 
 across the Atlantic." 
 
 Joaquin Miller's complete poetical works have 
 been abridged and published in a very neat volume 
 of 330 pages. The poet of the Sierras has become 
 his own censor so that he might give to the world 
 in one volume only the cream of all that he has 
 written; and no critic could have been more judi- 
 cious and severe than he. The preface is an auto- 
 biography coupled with some of his "lessons not 
 found in books." This is Joaquin Miller's great- 
 est book, for in it his gentleness of manner and 
 simplicity of style leads the reader to feel that the 
 bard upon the Heights has in the evening of life 
 tuned his harp in perfect accord with the sweeter, 
 softer, gentler strains of the bird song in the land 
 of the western sunset. 
 
 England insists on placing Joaquin Miller in the 
 front rank of living American poets. But Joaquin 
 Miller's life and lines can never be fully under- 
 stood and appreciated without some acquaintance 
 with Minnie Myrtle Miller, his wife, who stood 
 unrivalled for her peculiar versatility. She could 
 carry a gun into the mountain fastness and slay a 
 deer, an elk, or a bear, on which to dine, or she 
 could relapse into quietude and write a poem that 
 showed undoubted genius, or she could appear in 
 high social circles with a queenly grace and there 
 entertain the rich and the princely. 
 
OBEQOS LITERATURE. 
 
 MINNIE MYRTLE MILLER. 
 
 Is there something about poetic talent that ren- 
 ders its possessor unhappy? Is the gift fatal to the 
 fullest enjoyment of life? Does its fervid warmth 
 destroy the shrine whereon its fires burn, or its 
 smallest spark scar the breast which holds it? 
 These are questions often asked, and the lives of 
 our poets have furnished evidence contradictory in 
 the extreme. Those who have become intimately 
 acquainted with many of them often pause in read- 
 ing their inspiring strains to muse sadly over the 
 wrecked hopes, and unhappy lives of those who 
 have tuned to rhythm and set to melody the hearts 
 of all the peoples of earth. 
 
 We candidly confess our inability at this time 
 to summon sufficient testimony to decide these 
 questions, but would suggest that should their 
 affirmative be established then must the world feel 
 additional gratitude to its songsters, to those who 
 have followed the bent of their genius in striving 
 to elevate and ennoble mankind while destroying 
 their own share of its happiness. Although it may 
 be difficult to disprove the theory somewhat preva- 
 lent that poets are restless, irritable and unhappy 
 in their social relations with their fellows, yet it is 
 so adverse to the generally acknowledged bene- 
 ficence of the laws of nature which must control 
 the endowment of mental powers and attributes 
 

 MINNIE MYRTLE MILLER, POETESS OF THE COQUELLE. 
 
OREGON LI TERA T URE. 45 
 
 as well as physical organization and development, 
 that we incline to the belief that poetic talents no 
 more than those which enrich the fields of science, 
 literature and art should contain an inherent ten- 
 dency to render their possessor unhappy. All pio- 
 neers, in whatever line of thought or action their 
 labors may lie, must feel at times a sense of lone- 
 liness and isolation, akin to that felt by one who 
 has been selected for his peculiar fitness to go into 
 a strange land to mark the way for the coming 
 multitude. We cannot but imagine that though his 
 journey by day and his campfires by night do not 
 bring him the pleasure of social companionship, he 
 has abundant joy and the keenest delight in the 
 thought that ere long a joyous crowd shall come 
 along his path hailing with pleasure the land- 
 marks he has made for guidance in their journey 
 through a beautiful and virgin land. May not the 
 bright blaze of his campfire reveal a face beaming 
 with pleasure and fall upon a breast swelling with 
 pride as he reflects that he has marked a way over 
 the sunniest slope and greenest meadows, and left 
 hints where the multitude when weary may rest 
 and refresh themselves in the most enchanting 
 vales beside rippling streams? But it maybe read- 
 ily understood it is a source of unhappiness for 
 one to feel the possession of talents whose culti- 
 vation is calculated to benefit mankind and leave 
 an enduring name, and yet to be so environed by 
 circumstances as to render such cultivation impos- 
 
OREGON LITERATURE. 
 
 sible. The cry of the poor caged starling, "I can't 
 get out," is echoed by many a talented mind when 
 its possessor is surrounded by poverty and other 
 circumstances unfavorable to mental development. 
 We know of no one whose life's history more 
 forcibly illustrates this restless longing for larger 
 and higher sphere of action than the subject of this 
 sketch, Minnie Myrtle Miller. Thirty-six years ago 
 when the war-cloud lowered heavy and dark over 
 our land, when there were heard criminations and 
 recriminations everywhere, when the deliberations 
 of our congress assumed the form of angry debate, 
 when the startling cry of "traitor" was heard echo- 
 ing through the halls dedicated to liberty, when 
 father and son held bitter converse, and brothers 
 prepared to array themselves as enemies in deadly 
 combat, when every home in the land was shocked 
 by the clash of arms and the tramp of mustering 
 steeds she first was known through the public 
 press and beyond the immediate neighborhood of 
 her home. Even there though furthest removed 
 from the seat of war on the extreme western verge 
 of civilization, she heard among her few associates 
 angry words spoken by youthful tongues and read 
 fiery sentences penned by aged hands. Hers was 
 a nature too gentle, too kind, too sweet to sound 
 or even echo the notes of war. When all the land 
 was a Babel of angry voices, hers was clear and 
 sweet. She wrote of her home, her friends, of the 
 sunlit waves of the Pacific which smoothed the 
 
OREGON LITERATURE. 
 
 sands for her feet, and told the beautiful stories 
 whispered by the tall pines as she wandered through 
 the groves. 
 
 Her name was Theresa Dyer; with the quick C2.** 
 for the musical, which characterized all her writ- 
 ings, she adopted the nom de plume of "Minnie 
 Myrtle," and sent her productions both prose and 
 verse to the neighboring weekly papers. Her 
 future husband, Cincinnatus Heine Miller, since 
 known as "Joaquin Miller," was at that time writ- 
 ing for the same papers, wild, weird and sometimes 
 blood-thirsty stories, signed "Giles Gaston." In 
 one of these, in which he thrillingly depicted a 
 battle on' the border with the Indians, he expressed 
 a desire to become acquainted with the sweet singer 
 of the Coquelle, whoever she might be. Although 
 but a youth, he knew none but a sweet young girl, 
 filled with all the pleasing fancies and fallacies of 
 life, could write as she did. In Minnie's next 
 story was given her address; and the correspond- 
 ence, which a few months later resulted in her 
 marriage to the poet, began by his mailing her an 
 appreciative letter inclosing a tin-type picture of 
 himself. He was tall, strong, and not graceless in 
 a woman's eye. He found her gentle, .handsome 
 and sweet, in the first flush of young womanhood. 
 Their first meeting sealed their fate. After seven 
 years of married life they were separated, Joaquin 
 going to Europe, while the saddened mother, with 
 her three children, returned to her father's home. 
 
OREGON LITERATURE. 
 
 The cause of their separation is still a mystery; 
 whether some rude shock broke the bonds which 
 love had tied, or ardent love was slowly crushed 
 to death by the attrition of dissimilar natures was 
 never known. Certain it is that neither was happy 
 after their separation. The life of each was sad- 
 dened before it had well begun. At the early age 
 of thirty-seven, when the poor, tired mother laid 
 down her burden, she was soothed by the tender 
 words and sustained by the strong arm of the poet 
 lover who had won her maiden heart in the spring- 
 time of life. She died in New York, surrounded 
 with friends, leaving unfinished several poems and 
 a sketch of her life which she labored hard to com- 
 plete before her summons came. It has never been 
 published. The manuscript, although undoubtedly 
 worthy of preservation, became misplaced and can- 
 not now be found. Her friends deeply regret this, 
 but it may be best that it was lost. While it would 
 surely have found a ready sale, it could not but have 
 brought to its readers more tears than smiles. A 
 key to much of this lost story of her life appears 
 to be given in these lines of her poem, "At the 
 Land's End." 
 
 "I am conscript hurriel to battle 
 
 With fates yet I fain would be 
 
 Vanquished and silenced forever 
 
 And driven back to my sea. 
 
 Oh! to leave this strife, this turmoil, 
 
 Leave all undone and skim 
 
 AVith the clouds that flee to the hill tops 
 
 And rest forever with Him." 
 
OREGON LITERATURE. 49 
 
 <$ems of regon. 
 
50 OREGON LITERATURE. 
 
 OUR EMBLEM FLOWER. 
 
 Copyright 1889, by Wiley B. Allen. 
 
 Wild flower of Oregon, 
 Loved by each native son, 
 Of thee we sing. 
 Emblem of hope and pride, 
 
 Along the mountain-side, 
 Down to the ocean's tide, 
 
 We praises bring. 
 
 From cascades to dell, 
 Where birds in echo swell, 
 
 Their songs so free, 
 Where rolls the Oregon, 
 
 By love's sweet labor won, 
 From morn to setting- sun, 
 
 We sing of thee. 
 
 From Hood's prophetic crest, 
 Throughout the golden West, 
 
 In every bower, 
 Columbia's breeze has blown, 
 
 Sweet yellow petals grown, 
 "Wild grape of Oregon," 
 
 Our emblem flower. 
 
 Ena M. White. 
 
 *The Oregon grape is the Oregon state flower. The 
 marguerite is the emblem of the Oregon Native Sons. 
 
OREGON LITERATURE. 51 
 
 JAMES G. CLARKE. 
 
 Miss Leona Smith says: "Poetry and Song," 
 written by James G. Clark, for many years a res- 
 ident of Grants Pass, Oregon, does not possess 
 all the elements necessary to world-wide renown, 
 but it will undoubtedly continue to be an inspira- 
 tion to many throughout this nation. The poems 
 have a sweet, soft, sad, melody which reveal to us 
 the suffering of the author. They are not the 
 hopeless longings of a soul unsatisfied, but they 
 are the expression of one who is sure of a place 
 in his Father's home He even fancies that 
 
 "He catches the sweet strains of songs 
 Floating down from distant throng's 
 And can feel the touch of hands 
 Reaching out from angel bands." 
 
 Purity is one of the prominent traits of his writ- 
 ings. He wrote some very tender love poems, 
 but they are all on the strain of "I cannot live with- 
 out you." Many of his poems are of childhood; 
 in one he says: 
 
 "Friends of my childhood 
 
 Tender and loving, 
 
 Scattered like leaves over a desolate plain 
 
 Dreams of childhood, where are you roving, 
 
 Never to gladden my pathway of pain." 
 
 The poem "Look Up," is representative of his 
 work; it is 
 
52 OREGON LITERA TURE. 
 
 "Look up, look up, desponding soul! 
 
 The clouds are only seeming, 
 The light behind the darkening scroll 
 
 Eternally is -beaming." 
 
 "There is no death, there is no night, 
 
 No life nor day declining, 
 Beyond the day's departing light, 
 
 The sun is always shining." 
 
 "Could we but pierce the rolling storms 
 That veil the pathway southward, 
 
 We'd s/ee a host of shining forms 
 Forever looking onward." 
 
 "The Mount of the Holy Cross," which is num- 
 bered among American classics, is his greatest 
 poem. 
 
 MRS. S. WATSON HAMILTON. 
 
 On taking up a volume of Byron, the careful 
 reader will feel that the author had chosen Edmund 
 Spenser as his model. And while some of the 
 proofs for his opinion may be so subtle as to 
 baffle all analysis, yet we believe he was correct 
 in his opinion. So, in reading "The Angel of the 
 Covenant" for the first time, the reader will feel 
 that the authoress has taken Milton as her model, 
 wrought out a theme, and then wrote the book 
 with her Bible on her knee. The poem is prob- 
 
OREGON LITERATURE. 53 
 
 ably the longest religious epic written in Oregon. 
 The peculiar nature of the subject and lengthy 
 treatment given it has destined the poem to re- 
 semble the "Paradise Lost" in the fact that its 
 number of admirers will excel its number of read- 
 ers. It is not at all presumptuous to assert that 
 the poem will live a century hence it must be a 
 satisfaction to believe that one's writings will go 
 on preaching some immortal truth to the children 
 of men long after the author has finished her work. 
 
 Throughout the poem, Mrs. Hamilton deals with 
 stern religious truths as awful facts, and exhibits 
 a devotional spirit directed by that wisdom that 
 comes from philosophy and interpretation; her 
 poems are therefore intellectual. She rarely alludes 
 to nature, but, if she were to enjoy a bouquet of 
 flowers, she would revel in their variety, arrange- 
 ment and beauty, and be delighted with their fra- 
 grance, which would be poetical; unconsciously 
 she might go a step further and ask why are they 
 beautiful? This would still be poetical. But 
 when she begins to analyze their aroma to ascer- 
 tain the kinds and the proportion of each that 
 pleases her she enters a realm of investigation which 
 causes most minds to think so intensely that the 
 heart loses its opportunity to feel. Hence, at times 
 the poem becomes somwhat metaphysical, and con- 
 sequently appreciated by those who read it more 
 as food for the mind than as food for the heart. 
 
 The poem which contains about 1,500 lines is 
 
54 OREGON LITERATURE. 
 
 divided into three books, the first of which pur- 
 sues the following argument: 
 
 BOOK I. There is one God of whom mind is an off- 
 spring through division; Wisdom and Death are 
 personified; man represents the evil nature ajid 
 woman a nature that was "slain" by her faith in 
 the Word of God, while Adam of the Covenant 
 fills the figure of Christ, who, as the Voice of God, 
 is the Bow of the Conqueror. As the Forbidden 
 Tree is the sword of the Divider, the records of 
 the Heavenly Garden are of knowledge of which 
 Israel ia an allegory, and the visions of St. John, 
 revelations. The first description is of the rise and 
 fall of the first Kingdom of Knowledge, a house 
 that was built on the sand. 
 
 BOOK II. This is a description of the second King- 
 dom of Knowledge, where man by eating the For- 
 bidden Fruit, awakes from spiritual death, recalls 
 his knowledge of the past, and is born a living soul. 
 The seven angels with the seven trumpets are- 
 symbols of the curses under which man fell and 
 his resurrection. 
 
 BOOK III. Adam, the Temple of the Voice, of which 
 Christ is the finished work, is measured into years 
 from Eden to Calvary; Christ is the figure of the 
 two witnesses of God. The generations of Wisdom 
 are recalled as visions. Mystery is spiritual night, 
 to which the presence of God is the corresponding 
 
OREGON LITERATURE. 55 
 
 day. The image of the spoken word preserves a 
 knowledge of the light while darkness reigns. In 
 Adam the generations of knowledge are perpetual, 
 who is of Wisdom the first, and last, the beginning 
 and the end. May the conditions of man always 
 meet the demands of knowledge. 
 
 ELLA HIGGINSON. 
 
 In speaking of Mrs. Ella Higginson, the "Ore- 
 gonian" recently said: 
 
 "Mrs. Higginson is a typical American woman, 
 a very interesting conversationalist, and she has 
 achieved brilliant success as an author of both 
 prose and poetry. She has taken several first 
 prizes for stories, the last being the McClure prize 
 of $500. The products of her pen are eagerly 
 sought by Eastern publishers, and are now issued 
 by the McMillans. Her latest books are 'The 
 Flower That Grew in the Sand,' 'From the Land 
 of the Snowpearls,' and 'A Forest Orchid/ and 
 she will soon have ready a new book of poems 
 entitled 'When the Birds Go North Again.' " 
 
 Mrs. Higginson began her literary career in 
 Oregon, wrote her first story for the Oregon Vi- 
 dette, in Portland, in 1879. She passed her girl- 
 hood in LaGrande and Oregon City, and has 
 many pleasant memories of those towns, and espe- 
 cially of the inspiring scenery surrounding the 
 
56 OREGON LITERA TURE. 
 
 well-named Grand Ronde valley. Before marriage 
 she was Miss Ella Rhodes, and her old school- 
 mates well remember her, and are glad that her 
 literary productions are brightening thousands of 
 homes throughout the land and that her fame is 
 growing. 
 
 BLANCHE FEARING. 
 
 All peoples have had their blind bards who 
 gave the world some message that was withheld 
 from those "who having eyes yet see not;" and 
 we say this is a Homer who inspired the soldiery 
 of the world, or an Ossian who made Scottish 
 legends more precious, or a Milton who "under- 
 took what no man ought to have undertaken, and 
 did with it what no other man could have done" 
 described heaven. It would be presumptuous to 
 claim that we have had either of these, but we 
 have had a blind poetess who like a comet swept 
 suddenly across our orbit. Her name was Lilian 
 Blanche Fearing. No one knew whence she came 
 or whither she went; but sometime in the quiet 
 city of Roseburg she learned of a sleeping infant and 
 left these lines which may be found in her book 
 entitled ''The Sleeping World": 
 
 LET HIM SLEEP. 
 Oh, do not wake the little one, 
 With flowing curl upon his face, 
 
OREGON LI TERA T URE. 57 
 
 Like strands of light dropped from the sun, 
 And mingled there in golden grace! 
 
 Oh, tell him not the moments run 
 Through life's frail fingers in swift chase! 
 "Let him sleep, let him sjleep!" 
 
 There cometh a "day when light is pain, 
 
 When he will lean his head away, 
 And sunward hold his palm, to gain 
 
 A respite from the glare of day; 
 
 For no fiond lip will smile, and say, 
 
 "Let him sleep, let him sjleep!" 
 
 Hush! hush! wake not the child! 
 
 Just now a light shone from within, 
 And through his lips an angel smiled, 
 
 Too fresh from heaven for grief to win; 
 Oh, children are God's undented, 
 
 Too fresh from heaven to dream of sfin! 
 "Let him sleep, let him sjeep!" 
 
 i 
 
 The volume, which contains a score or more of 
 short poems, reveals poetic ideas as well as poetic 
 language; and when you find both in the same 
 selection you are pleased with it and feel like lin- 
 gering on certain choice passages so as to drink 
 in the full meaning; and, frequently, the reader 
 yields to the inclination to read the entire poem 
 again and again. The authoress exhibits many 
 indications of growth, so that later, we may ex- 
 pect another and a greater volume from her pen. 
 
68 OREGON LITERATURE. 
 
 HENRY H. WOODWARD. 
 
 Near where the Umpquas meet, "the veteran 
 soldier-poet," Henry H. Woodward, has pitched 
 his tent and sung his song. Quiet, homelike and 
 peaceful are his haunts; sweet, tender, and serene, 
 his song. A half century of travel and war and 
 touch with men rings in the "Lyrics of the Ump- 
 qua." The spirit of his song is love and friend- 
 ship, and religion as influenced by the land and 
 the sea; and he records a memorial to many a 
 friend who lives in poetry, but not in the history 
 of men. It is true that he is neither a Shakespeare, 
 a Milton, nor a Byron, but his writings prove to 
 us that he has a good heart, that he upholds the 
 right, and speaks a cherry word to every fellow 
 traveler; hence we sit down contentedly under his 
 melodies, little regarding the strain of his song 
 or the march of its music. 
 
 In his "Mariner's Life" we read 
 
 "On the raging deep they often see 
 Humanity's blessings freely poured; 
 Where the weak to the strong for succor flee, 
 And pity is oft in a rough bosom stored." 
 
 |n the "Apostrophe to the Ocean" are these 
 lines, 
 
 "Deep and expansive sea which encircleth 
 This terrestrial siphere, sublimely 
 
OR EG ON L ITERAT URE. 59 
 
 Grand and beautiful; in calmly mood, 
 
 Like an infant in placid slumber dreaming." 
 
 You will observe a finger pointing heavenward 
 in the following lines, 
 
 "M'ortal! remember that life to thee was given 
 By Him who rules o'er earth and heaven; 
 The universe was made by His Almighty hand, 
 And He empowered man to subdue the land." 
 
 Elsewhere he says, 
 
 "Where'er we stray, O God, we find, 
 Some marks of thy Almighty Hand." 
 
 COL. E. D. BAKER. 
 
 Among the great orations of Col. Edward Dick- 
 inson Baker were his great Union speech made 
 in Platt hall, San Francisco, while on his way to 
 Washington, as senator-elect from Oregon; his 
 oration on the occasion of celebrating the laying 
 of the Atlantic cable, made in 1853; his oration on 
 the occasion of the death of Broderick. One who 
 heard Col. Baker's oration at Salem on the Fourth 
 of July, 1860, said: "The orator's fame had spread 
 far and near, and when the speaker began th^ 
 crowd was so vast that fully one-fourth were for- 
 tunate in finding standing room; but the eloquence 
 of the speaker was such that in less than twenty 
 minutes all were standing." 
 
60 OREGON LITERATURE. 
 
 The following is selected from his great Union 
 speech, and is especially appropriate in this place: 
 
 "Here, then, long years ago, I took my stand 
 by Freedom; and where the feet of my youth were 
 planted, there my manhood and my age shall 
 march. And, for one, I am not ashamed of Free- 
 dom. I know her power; I glory in her strength. 
 I have seen her again and again struck down on 
 a hundred chosen fields of battle. I have seen her 
 foes gather around her, and bind her to the stake. 
 I have seen them give her ashes to the winds, re- 
 gathering them again, that they might scatter them 
 yet more widely. But when they turned to exult, 
 I have seen her again meet them, face to face, 
 clad in complete steel, and brandishing in her 
 strong right hand a flaming sword, red with in- 
 sufferable light. And, therefore, I take courage. 
 The people gather around her once more. The 
 genius of America will at last lead her sons to 
 Freedom." 
 
 May we briefly follow him as a poet while he 
 reads a page from the volume of nature? He was 
 probably along the shore near where Golden Gate 
 swings out into the deep, or where Empire City 
 looks out upon the sea, or at Seal Rock, where the 
 Siletz, the Alsea, and the Yaquina Indians met in 
 festivity; or he may have been where the mighty 
 Columbia mingles with that eternity of waters, the 
 Pacific ocean. It was evidently just after the eve- 
 ning twilight, when the dark gray of the night was 
 
OREGON LITERATURE. 61 
 
 coming on, and the beautiful stars, "the lovely 
 forget-me-nots of the angels were blossoming in 
 the infinite meadows of heaven." Overhead was 
 the sky as silent as a summer cloud; and 'before 
 him was the sea ever changing, ever heaving, ever 
 restless as in the ages. A wave caught his atten- 
 tion, and he said: 
 
 Dost thiou seek a star, with thy swelling crest, 
 O wave, that leavest thy mother's breast? 
 Dost thou leap from the prisoned depths below, 
 In scorn of their calm and constant flow? 
 Or art thou seeking some distant land, 
 To die in murmurs upon the strand?" 
 
 A prophet, scholar and poet his mind sweeps 
 overt he wrecks of navies and armadas, and visions 
 of battles, where the honor of nations was contest- 
 ed, rise before him; and poet-like, he regards the 
 ocean as a living, breathing, sympathizing creat- 
 ture, and thus addresses it; 
 
 i 
 
 "Hast thou tales to tell of the pearl-lit deep, 
 
 Where the wave-whelmed mariner rocks in sleep? 
 Canst thou speak of navies that sunk in pride 
 Ere the roll of their thunder in echo died? 
 What trophies, what banners are floating- free 
 In the shadowy depths of that silent sea!" 
 
 But when the poet comes down with his mes- 
 sage from the mountain of the ideal into the plain 
 of the real, he regards the land and the sea with 
 
62 OREGON LITERATURE. 
 
 the wisdom of a philosopher; so he is reminded 
 that the vast ocean will roll a million of years after 
 the man is gone and forgotten; and he is then 
 surprised yea, astonished at himself for having 
 presumed to ask these questions; and conscientious 
 as he is conscious, he hastens to acknowledge 
 "It were vain to ask, as thou rollest afar, 
 Of banner, or mariner, ship or star; 
 It were vain to seek in thy stormy face 
 Some tale of the sorrowful past to trace. 
 Thou art swelling- high, thou art flashing free, 
 How vain are the questions we ask of thee!" 
 
 Again the wave demands his attention; it re- 
 cedes, but is followed by another; by a third; then 
 by a fourth, a fifth, a sixth; and then comes the 
 seventh that overrides them all. This is in turn 
 overwhelmed by another seventh; and so on 
 throughout the days. Like the true poet, he again 
 drinks in a lesson as a thinks of the Napoleons, 
 the Caesars, the Alexanders, that were over- 
 whelmed by some higher wave in the tide of human 
 affairs; and he teaches us the vanity of ambition, 
 and the certainty of death, as he applies the lesson 
 to himself in these words 
 "I, too, am a wave on a stormy sea; 
 I, too, am a wanderer, driven like thee; 
 I, too, am seeking a distant land, 
 To be lost and gone ere I reach the strand; 
 For the land I seek is a waveless shore, 
 And they who once reach it shall wander no more." 
 
OREGON LITERATURE. 63 
 
 TROUBLE. 
 
 Gov. Geo. L. Curry. 
 
 With aching hearts we strive to bear our trouble, 
 
 Though some surrender to the killing pain ; 
 Life's harvest-fields are full of wounding stubble, 
 
 Tto prove the goodness of the gathered grain. 
 With aching hearts we struggle on in sorrow, 
 
 Seeking some comfort in our sorest need; 
 The dismal day may have a bright to-morrow, 
 
 And all our troubles be as "precious seed." 
 As precious seed within the heart's recesses, 
 
 To germinate and grow to fruitage rare, 
 Of patience, love, hope, faith and aM that blesses, 
 
 And forms the burden of our daily prayer. 
 With aching heart we cling to heaven's evangels, 
 
 The beautiful, the good, the true, the pure, 
 Communing with us always like good angels, 
 
 To help us iu the suffering we endure. 
 Indeed, to suffer Tind sustain afflictions 
 
 Is the experience which we all acquire; 
 Our tribulations are the harsh restrictions 
 
 To consummations we so much desire. 
 With aching hearts life's battle still maintaining, 
 
 The pain, the grief, and death we comprehend, 
 As isisues we accept without complaining, 
 
 So weary are we for the end. 
 Alas! so weary, longing for the ending, 
 
64 OREGON LI1ERA TURE. 
 
 For that refreshing rest that precious peace, 
 That common heritage, past comprehending, 
 When all the heart-aches shall forever cease. 
 
 "ANGELS ARE WAITING FOR ME." 
 
 A saint whose wearied body rests in the silent 
 city crowning a little Oregon hill, and whose 
 sacred memory is a precious legacy to those who 
 survive her, and whose blessed example like an 
 angel's touch gently impels heavenward, caught a 
 few glimpses of the higher heaven from the heaven 
 she lived in here below; and before the final hour 
 came, gave expression in poetic, psalm-like lan- 
 guage to her rapture upon the visions she beheld. 
 These utterances were entrusted to a youth who 
 wove them into the poetry of men; but often when 
 I have read them, I have been unable to forego 
 the felicity of feeling that they were the words 
 of one whose body was on earth while her soul 
 was already visiting the eternal city. 
 
 After the poem descants briefly upon her de- 
 parture from the home of her birth to a far-distant 
 land to share with the loved ones of earth in 
 bearing the burdens and toil for Him who bled for 
 our wrong, in the full consciousness of a glorious 
 victory, she says: "His peace as a river now flows 
 through soul and body so free that glory abounds 
 in my heart while angels are waiting for me." 
 
OREGON LITER A TURE. 65 
 
 To me, that sounds like the poetry of angels; and 
 she continues: 
 
 "The Bible is plain to me now; 
 
 For Jesus explains as I read, 
 And lines for me verses ne'er sung, 
 
 With manna my spirit they feed! 
 ' "There's such a bright light round the cross; 
 
 And over the dark, stormy sea, 
 The friends who before me have gone 
 
 Are angels now waiting, for me.' 
 
 "Among the long ranks that they form 
 
 In Glory, my Savior there stands 
 With multitudes grand, who are saved, 
 
 And marching in beautiful bands; 
 'They're coming in thousands' with Him; 
 
 Those bright ones o'er there can you see, 
 Whose luster illumines that throng? 
 
 Those 'angels are calling for me.' 
 
 f 
 "Those mansions and cities so fair 
 
 Are teeming with armies in white, 
 The courts will be empty of them 
 
 'They're coming to me' in their flight; 
 'More coming!' Now 'Glory to God!' 
 
 'They stand by my bed.' 'Can you see?' 
 'I'm waiting; yes, waiting;' because 
 
 Those 'angels are coming for me.' " 
 
66 OREGON L1TERA TURK. 
 
 HOMER DAVENPORT. 
 
 When a great genius is just rising to view, the 
 astonished world says, "Who would have expected 
 it?" So it was said of Homer Davenport who rose 
 out of Silverton to glitter among the artists of 
 the world. Busy men and women who had min- 
 gled with his modest ancestry for decades could 
 scarcely realize that there had been generations 
 of unassuming greatness a veritable wealth of 
 mind that time and circumstances and God 
 had wrought into a genius. They were glad 
 so glad they could hardly believe it yet they were 
 wont to think of him as a sort of intellectual 
 accident emanating from nothingness and spring- 
 ing suddenly into the front ranks of modern art- 
 ists. But, my friends, Genius comes not in this 
 manner. "Who is this Nast?" was the burning 
 question whispered throughout the world. "Whence 
 came he?" rung down the electric lines of the con- 
 tinents. "How came he by this God-given genius?" 
 was the question of the hour. And the answer 
 came "He is a man from an Oregon hamlet a 
 child of genius the evolution of a talented family 
 and favorable environments." His mind is the nat- 
 ural offspring of an ancestry that has given the 
 world great men and women in almost every de- 
 partment of human endeavor; and his mind was 
 early nurtured upon the pictures he beheld in the 
 scenes of Oregon, and he fed upon the nourishment 
 of the ages. Then you cast your eye upward to be- 
 
HOMER DAVENPORT. 
 
OREGON LITERATURE. 67 
 
 hold the onward march of Genius, and you find him 
 there a great man who puts life and truth and 
 magic into every touch of his wonderful brush. 
 This is Homer Davenport, the greatest cartoonist 
 of America. 
 
 THE MOTHERS OF MEN. 
 
 The bravest battle that ever was fought! 
 
 Shall I te'l you where and when? 
 On the map of the world you will find it not- 
 
 'Twas fought by the mothers of men. 
 
 Nay, not with canncn or battle shot, 
 
 With swiord or nobler pen! 
 Nay, not with eloquent words or though, 
 
 From mouths of wonderful men! 
 
 But deep in the walled-up woman's heart - 
 
 Of woman that would not yield, 
 But brave'y, silently, bore her part 
 
 Lo, there is that battle field! 
 
 Nb marshalling troup, no bivouac song, 
 
 No banner to gleam or wave; 
 But oh! these battle they last so long 
 
 From babyhood to- the grave. 
 
 Yet faithful still a.s a bridge of stars, 
 She fights in JUT walled-up town 
 
68 OREGON LITERA TURE. 
 
 Fig-hts on arfd oh in the end: ess wars, 
 Then silent, unseen, goes down. 
 
 Oh, spotless woman in a world of shame; 
 
 With splendid and silent scorn, 
 Go frack to God as white as you came 
 
 The kinglies<t warrior born! 
 
 Joaquin Miller. 
 
 AN EVENING ON THE PLAINS. 
 
 But time passes; the watch is set for the night, 
 the council of the old men has broken up, and 
 each has returned to his own quarter. The flute 
 has whispered its last lament to the deepening 
 night. The violin is silent, and the dancers have 
 dispersed. Enamored youth have whispered a 
 tender "good night" in the ear of blushing maidens, 
 or stolen a kiss from the lips of some future bride 
 for Cupid here as elsewhere has been busy bring- 
 ing together congenial hearts, and among these 
 simple people he alone is consulted in forming 
 the marriage tie. Even the doctor and the pilot 
 have finished their confidential interview and have 
 separated for the night. All is hushed and re- 
 pose from the fatigues of the day, save the vigilant 
 guard, and the wakeful leader who still has cares 
 upon his mind that forbid sleep. 
 
 He hears the ten o'clock relief taking post and 
 the ''all well" report of the returning guard; the 
 
OREGON LITERATURE. 69 
 
 night deepens, yet he seeks not the needed repose. 
 At length a sentinel hurries to him with the wel- 
 come report that a party is approaching as yet too 
 far away for its character to be determined, and he 
 instantly hurries out in the direction seen. This 
 he does both from inclination and duty, for in times 
 past the camp had been unnecessarily alarmed by 
 timid or inexperienced sentinels, causing much 
 confusion and fright amongst women and children, 
 and it had been made a rule, that all extraordi- 
 nary incidents of the night should be reported 
 directly to the pilot, who alone had the authority 
 to call out the military strength of the column, or 
 so much of it as was in his judgment necessary to 
 prevent a stampede or repel an enemy. 
 
 To-night he is at no loss to determine that the 
 approaching party are our missing hunters, and 
 that they have met with success, and he only waits 
 until by some further signal he can know that no 
 ill .has happened to them. This is not long want- 
 ing. He does not even await their arrival, but 
 the last care of the day being removed, and the 
 last duty performed, he too seeks the rest that 
 will enable him to go through the same routine 
 to-morrow. But here I leave him, for my task 
 is also done, and, unlike -his, it is to be repeated 
 no more. Jesse Applegate. 
 
 A GRAVE IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 A humble grave was dug under the spreading 
 
70 OREGON LITERATURE. 
 
 boughs of a venerable oak, and there the remains 
 were followed by a silent, thoughtful and solemn 
 company of emigrants, thus so forcibly reminded 
 that they too were travelers to that land "from 
 whose bourne there is no return." The minister 
 improved the occasion to deliver to us an impres- 
 sive sermon as we sat around that new made grave 
 in the wilderness, so well calculated to impress 
 upon the mind the incalculable importance of seek- 
 ing another and better country, where there is no 
 sickness and no death. 
 
 I had often witnessed the approach of death; 
 sometimes, marking his progress by the insidious 
 work of consumption; and, at others, assailing his 
 victim in a less doubtful manner. I had seen the 
 guileless infant, with the light of love and inno- 
 cence upon its face, gradually fade away, like a 
 beautiful cloud upon the sky melting into the dews 
 of heaven, until it disappeared in the blue ethereal. 
 I had beheld the strong man, who had made this 
 world all his trust, struggling violently with death, 
 and had heard him exclaim in agony, "I will not 
 die." And yet death relinquished not his tena- 
 cious grasp upon his victim. The sound of the 
 hammer and the plane have ceased for a brief 
 space; the ploughman has paused in the furrow, 
 and even the school boy with his books and 
 satchel has stood still, and the very atmosphere has 
 seemed to assume a sort of melancholy tinge, as 
 the tones of the tolling bell have come slowly, sol- 
 
OREGON LITERATURE. 
 
 emnly, and at measured intervals upon the move- 
 less air, and hushing the mind to breathless 
 thoughts that fain would know the whither of the 
 departed. But death in the wilderness in the sol- 
 itude of nature, and far from the fixed abodes of 
 busy men, seemed to have in it solemnity that far 
 surpassed all this. 
 Hon. J. Quinn Thornton, A. M., D. C. L., LL. D. 
 
 THE OREGON REPUBLIC 
 Penetrating the veil and looking behind, what 
 do we realize? Our fellow countrymen and women, 
 few in numbers, but steadfast in purpose, who had 
 been forgotten by their government, yet neglect 
 could not weaken their loyalty and love. Submit- 
 ting patiently to that injustice, always true to 
 birthright and origin, they carried with them love 
 of republican institutions, had established, and 
 upon that very day were successfully administering 
 a government of the people, by the people. Ore- 
 gon already contained within it an infant republic. 
 Here was a thriving, loyal American common- 
 wealth, started by children of the great republican 
 household, who, though for a time discarded, had 
 ever been animated with unabated zeal for the glory 
 and grandeur of their parent government. 
 
 When I contemplate this history, this undying 
 devotion to fatherland, this patriotic love of their 
 native institutions, I know not which most to com- 
 
72 OREGON LITERATURE. 
 
 mend their implicit confidence in the title of their 
 country to Oregon which they never failed to as- 
 sert on every proper occasion, and so sure were 
 they that it would be maintained, their patriotic 
 avowal was that the government, they constituted 
 their trusteeship of the territory, should only con- 
 tinue "until such time as the United States shall 
 extend jurisdiction;" their signal and undying 
 love for republican institutions, breathing through 
 every line of the fundamental code of the govern- 
 ment they founded; or their eminent conservative 
 wisdom as displayed in that system, the laws en- 
 acted and their administration. How truly 
 
 "Each man made hig own stature, built himself: 
 Virtue alone outbids the pyramids, 
 Her monuments shall last when Bgypt,s fall." 
 
 Elwood Evans. 
 
 THE HOME BUILDERS. 
 
 A voyage of adventure brought not back the 
 golden fleece, and the argonauts no longer poured 
 over the Sierras into California, nor overflowed 
 her northern hills to seek fugitive fortune in Ore- 
 gon. The home-builders, too blessings on them 
 everywhere and forever! whose caravans, freight- 
 ed with the precious burden of wife and children 
 and household goods, the lares and penates of a 
 gentler than a Trojan race, had whitened the desert 
 
OREG ON L I TERA TURE. 73 
 
 with a constantly increasing stream direct to Ore- 
 gon. Hon. W. Lair Hill. 
 
 THE GOLD FEVER. 
 
 The seething mass of anxious adventurers was 
 a multitude that no man could number. This burn- 
 ing, insatiable desire to reach California assumed 
 the form of an epidemic. It was not bounded by 
 the Atlantic and western border. This yellow fever 
 prevailed wherever humanity existed. But between 
 them and the gold a great gulf was fixed. The 
 frowning winter, the desolate plains, the utter 
 want of transportation across the unknown, un- 
 tried wilderness, were all that prevented men, 
 women and children from a stampede that would 
 have depopulated and left vacant and tenantless, 
 the happy homes of America. The ties of home 
 and sweet domestic bliss were now engaged in 
 fierce and deadly conflict with the lion powers of 
 Avarice. The old and the young, the rich and the 
 poor, all were victims of the prevailing malady. 
 Hon. F. A*. Chenoweth. 
 
 HISTORIANS AND HISTORY MAKERS. 
 
 The acts of those who preceded us, have doubt- 
 less contributed to our edification. Historians, 
 philosophers and antiquarians have devoted ages 
 
OREGON LITERATURE. 
 
 to the most laborious investigation and research, 
 spreading barrels of ink over tons of paper in 
 their attempts to elucidate incidents, phases and 
 facts which might and ' have been preserved by 
 those whose lives were contemporaneous with the 
 subjects sought to be investigated. 
 
 A correct narration of the condition, situation 
 and surroundings of the early settlers of our state 
 will be of interest to those who succeed us. Their 
 mode of life, dress, manners, occupation, state of 
 their manufactories, agricultural and other indus- 
 tries, and all that pertained to their comparatively 
 rude and primitive condition must be of value to 
 their successors in estimating the progress and ben- 
 efits of civilization. 
 
 In the far-off future, when the "New Zealander 
 will sit upon the ruined pier of London bridge/' 
 and indulge in antiquarian cogitations relative to 
 the past, it might be convenient for him or some 
 other delver in historic mine, to refer to the 
 archives of the Oregon Pioneer Society to estab- 
 lish the fact that the founders of our state, unlike 
 Romulus and Remus, derived their sustenance from 
 something more respectable than a she wolf. 
 
 U. S. Senator J. W. Nesmith. 
 
 A GRANGER'S LOVE SONG. 
 
 Come to the grange with me, love; 
 Come to the farm with me, 
 
OR EG ON LI TERA T VEE. 75 
 
 Where the birds are singing and the flowers are spring- 
 ing, 
 And life is happy and free. 
 
 While the wheat grows in the field, love, 
 
 And the fuel is cut from the grove, 
 Neither want nor cold shall the night dreams haunt; 
 
 Only plenty and comfort and love. 
 Chorus. Gome to the grange with me, love, etc. 
 
 We'/ll build our home by the hill, love, 
 
 Whence the spring to the brooklet flows; 
 On the gentle slope where the lambkins play 
 
 In the scent of the sweet wild rose. 
 Chorus- 
 In the labors, joys, and cares of the grange, love, 
 
 In the shelter and shade of the grove, 
 Life's duties we'll meet in companionship sweet, 
 
 And there rest from our labors in love. 
 Chorus John Minto. 
 
 A STROLL TO ELMWOOD. 
 Turning toward the setting sun, we left Harvard 
 Square; and strolling along a mile of paved 
 streets and modern palaces, reached Elmwood, the 
 birthplace and home of James Russell Lowell, the 
 poet. A promenade along the outer, edge of the 
 enclosure, which is marked by a fence half hidden 
 
76 OREGON LITER A TURE. 
 
 with lilacs and clematis, and we enter the old-fash- 
 ioned gate, where we obtain the first full view of 
 the historic mansion. On our right and on our 
 left, everywhere, are trees and shrubs and vines 
 distributed irregularly over a closely shaven lawn 
 that skirts away as far as the eye can see through 
 the dense foliage. 
 
 And it is all precious to us. These plants have 
 yielded their flowers which the mother plucked and 
 fondly arranged for the boy's study. This wide- 
 spreading elm was set out by the elder Lowell; 
 that acacia, by Agassiz, who loved it; that spruce 
 by an admiring prince; and that chestnut was plant- 
 ed and fostered by the poet; and so on through the 
 gardener's inventory. All these were placed here 
 for the poet, and he was ours; hence they are ours 
 also, and we love to linger among them. 
 
 The mansion, which is a structure of colonial 
 times, stands before us as a mute witness of the 
 generations of patriotic fathers and mothers and 
 children who have grown older and wiser and bet- 
 ter under its sheltering roof, and then in their turn 
 solemnly and silently passed away. It was built 
 in 1760, and has ever since "been the home of Amer- 
 ican nobility, and its memories are dear to our 
 people. Did I say, the home of American nobility 
 since 1760? No; yes. This patriotic family gave 
 Elmwood over to the government in 1775, and it 
 was used during revolutionary times as an Amer- 
 ican hospital, it is true; but it was still the home 
 
tr" 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 IT" 
 
 O 
 M 
 
OREGON LITERATURE. 77 
 
 of American nobility. Nations have perished in a 
 day, but the family tree of the Lowells, planted in 
 colonial times, survived the revolutionary period, 
 flourished in the national age of the republic, and 
 made Elmwood a noted home of classical poetry, 
 and patriotic song. 
 
 Why should not this be a home of patriotism and 
 poetry, since everything around and about it indi- 
 cates that Cambridge is the great school of patriot- 
 ism and poetry? We have just passed the Charles 
 on whose banks stands the steepled church that 
 signaled the midnight ride of Paul Revere; undei 
 yonder elm, Washington took command of the 
 American forces; there are the cemeteries peopled 
 with the good and the great who died for freedom; 
 beyond is the home of Longfellow, the father of 
 American literature; and a thousand other influ- 
 ences among which is Harvard, the first univer- 
 sity of America all historic, all patriotic all poetic. 
 
 In response to a stroke or two of the old-fash- 
 ioned knocker, the door swings open. A glance 
 within reveals the library, the desk, the tobacco 
 knife, the pipe, and such other things as were com- 
 mon in the homes of the Eastern poets. Paintings, 
 mirrors, statuary and souvenirs from representative 
 men and countries of both continents adorn the 
 rooms and halls of the palace. All the appoint- 
 ments are such as would especially administer to 
 the comfort and pleasure of a plain old man, who, 
 as a polished scholar, had won distinction in the 
 
78 REG ON LI TEE A T URE. 
 
 universities of New England; who, as a gifted poet, 
 evolved themes that rank among the classics of the 
 age; and who, as a citizen, has been honored in 
 every quarter of the globe; and yet was so simple 
 in the habits of his life that when he became weary 
 at the end of his journey, he tarried at the foot of 
 the hill, and chose for his last resting place a spot 
 in the shade of an elm, where now stands an only 
 slab the plainest in all the great cemetery. 
 
 The home was like the man; for what the home 
 was in the world of nature and art, Lowell was 
 in the world of poetry and critical study. It has 
 become a part of his own life; therefore everything 
 has been held sacred and left undisturbed, that we 
 may know more of the poet, the better understand 
 his art, and come closer to the man. No one need 
 have told us this, for it is one of the things the 
 visitor feels without knowing why. We are inter- 
 ested in all that we see, become engaged in this 
 and that particular object, forget something that 
 has taken place, and then heedlessly cast about 
 thinking that he has just completed "The Vision 
 of Sir Launfal" or some other classic, laid aside his 
 pen, and stepped out. And we take up the lap 
 desk seemingly fresh from his fingers; and the 
 conversation glides on while we linger a little 
 longer, unconsciously awaiting him to step in 
 again. Thus the visit moves along until a late 
 hour, when, in the absence of the poet, we are given 
 the parting hand of his grandson; and we take a 
 
OREGON LITERATURE. 79 
 
 farewell glance at the home of the most cultured 
 American that has graced the court of Saint James. 
 
 Anonymous. 
 
 BUB KARABOO. 
 
 Say, I'm lonesome, awful lonesome now, 
 Since my chum, goiod chum Bub is gone. 
 
 There's no more rompin' in the mow, 
 An', no more playin' 'cept by me alone. 
 
 I wisht you'd tell me: tell me do, 
 
 Where's my chum, good chum Bub Karaboo. 
 
 Oh! I an' Bub did have sich times, 
 
 In the ode smimmin' hole 'neath the maple tree, 
 Where the white-tailed yaller-hammer sung his chimes, 
 
 An' sweet htoneysucklea were sipped by the bee. 
 Such friends, good friends you bet are few, 
 As was me an' my chum, Bub Karaboo. 
 
 In the ole milk-house where the spring bubbled up, 
 An' the weepin' wilier switches hung down low, 
 
 We'd slip in easy, the sweet cream sup, 
 Then pocket some cheese an' out we'd go. 
 
 But say, whore's Bub? You know, don't you, 
 
 My chum, good chum, Bub Karaboo? 
 
 We drove the milch cows up the lane, 
 When the sun went down behind the hill. 
 
 We gathered the eggs for sister Jane, 
 An' carried the shucked corn to the mill. 
 
80 OREGON LITERATURE. 
 
 But it's all done now, an' I wigh't I knew 
 Where's my chum, go>od chum Bub Karaboo. 
 
 But somethin' took hold uv Bub one day, 
 He'd caught somethin' sickly, so people said, 
 
 On the gate uv his house just over the way, 
 Wus hung a flag all shinin' an' red. 
 
 Say, what was the trouble an' why'd this they do, 
 
 For I couldn't see good chum Bub Karaboo? 
 
 One day a lot uv carriages to Bub's house went, 
 An' soon filed away kinder solem an' slow. 
 
 lu the lead uv the line, as on sorrow bent, 
 Four blacks pulled a carriage; and there were people 
 with heads bowed low. 
 
 I didn't see Bub when they passed, did you? 
 
 So where was he anyway, Bub Karaboo? 
 
 They lined to the graveyard on the hill, 
 Where they lingered fer an hour or two, 
 
 Then the blacks came back with a hum an' a buzz, 
 I thought they was bringin' back Bub Karaboo. 
 
 But they wasn't. So tell me, what did they do 
 
 With my chum, good chum Bub Karaboo? 
 
 Dennisi H. Stovall. 
 
 THE PIONEERS OF 1848. 
 
 The year which we celebrate marks a fruitful 
 period for the Pacific Northwest; 1848 was the 
 turning point in our history. Alternate hopes and 
 
OREGON LITER A TURE. 81 
 
 fears had moved the people up to this date. There 
 had been no recognition by congress. Laws had 
 been enacted and executed by the pioneers. Soci- 
 ety had begun to organize in a few centers, and 
 public sentiment was respected; but our nation 
 had not recognized this small band of American 
 citizens on her extreme frontier along the Pacific 
 ocean until 1848. The earlier pioneers the hunt- 
 ers and trappers, the missionaries and their wives, 
 and the immigrant families of the settlers had 
 found the path and opened the way hither, and 
 offered a safe and welcome home to all new comers. 
 Great was their task and nobly they completed it. 
 
 They had organized the provisional government 
 in 1842-4, on the American plan of equal rights 
 and and equal justice to every citizen, and had in- 
 cluded all as citizens who were so held under 
 state and national laws. They had ventured the 
 experiment of self-government as a duty of self- 
 protection, and not in disrespect or defiance of 
 congress or the constitution. Having marched two 
 thousand miles westward over the famed "Amer- 
 ican desert," and over three mountain ranges, and 
 still standing on American soil, they wished no 
 divorce from the home government, but, rather, a 
 stronger union with it. The fires of patriotism 
 burned more, not less, brightly within them under 
 the force of their long and painful tramp to plant 
 and defend the "flag of our nation" on this Pacific 
 frontier. Rev. G. H. Atkinson. 
 
82 OREGON LITERATURE. 
 
 THE OLD PIONEERS. 
 
 They have come from the valley, and from the 
 
 mountains down, 
 They are gathered from the country, from the city 
 
 and the town, 
 They came to swap reminiscences of time now on the 
 
 wane, 
 Of the anxious months of danger, of "the trip across 
 
 the plains." 
 Their ranks are getting thinner and their forms are 
 
 bending low, 
 Their eyes are growing dimmer and their locks are 
 
 white as snow, 
 Give them every comfort, tho' they carry well their 
 
 years, 
 They are grand old men and women, these "Old 
 
 Pioneers." 
 
 Let their annual reunions continue ever on 
 
 Until the last old pilgrim among them is gone! 
 
 They have sown the golden wheat where the camas 
 once did grow, 
 
 And the palace car now follows the trail the pack 
 mule used to go. 
 
 The schlpolhouse takes the place of the Indian 
 "Wickeyup," 
 
 And they who wrought the change deserve the "Gold- 
 en Cup." 
 
 Scatter flowers in their pathway, adown declining years, 
 
 They are grand old men and women, these "Old 
 Pioneers." E. S. McComas. 
 
OREGON LITERATURE. 83 
 
 SWEET OREGON. 
 
 (As sung by the DeMoss family, official song-writers 
 of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, U. S. 
 A., 1893.) 
 I'm thinking now of a beautiful land, 
 
 Oregfon, Oregon ; 
 With rivers and valleys and mountains grand, 
 
 Oregon, sweet Oregon ; 
 
 From the mountain peak all covered with snow, 
 A swift crystal streamlet ever doth flow 
 By the home of my youth, which I shall adore, 
 
 Oh! Oregon, my home. 
 Chorus 
 
 Oh Oregon, sweet Oregon, 
 
 My native home, I long for thee; 
 
 My native home, I long for thee. 
 
 I think of the forests and the prairies wide, 
 
 Oregjon, Oregon ; 
 The mines, the fish, and the ocean tide; 
 
 Oregon, sweet Oregon ; 
 
 Where the mighty Columbia rolls down to the sea; 
 And while the pines are ecluoing in the breeze, 
 Like a beautiful dream to" my memory comes 
 
 Sweet Oregon my home. 
 
 I long to dwell in my mountain home, 
 
 Oregon, Oregon; 
 Away from thy vales I shall never roam, 
 
 Oregon, sweet Oregon; 
 
84 OREGON LITERA TURE. 
 
 I sigh for thy bountiful harvest a^aln, 
 
 Thy fruit and thy calm gentle rain; 
 
 And thy pure, balmy air, which wafts fr^eJom's blest 
 
 song; 
 Oh! Oregon, my home. 
 
 Henry S. DeMoss. 
 
 THE JEWISH MILESTONE. 
 
 Let us then reason: If the unfolded book of 
 nature has its inspiring lesson for a poet's invo- 
 cation, how much more should the mighty vol- 
 umes written by the hand of Providence invite us 
 to profound contemplation? Our Passover stands 
 forth as the grandest milestone, as the epoch that 
 marks the starting point in the evolution of liberty. 
 With the Passover, Egypt began the early spring 
 of humanity, still wrapped in the deadly frost of 
 slavery. Israel's departure from Egypt was the 
 starting point on the journey to Sinai, over whose 
 ideal peak that sun should rise, whose fire and 
 light was strong enough to melt every iron shackle 
 and stamp every man with the image of his Creator. 
 
 Whether celebrated on the shores of the Nile, or 
 on the hallowed banks of the Jordan, by a Joshua 
 or Josiah, in the days of exile on the Euphrates, or 
 in the golden era of the Maccabeans under con- 
 quering Rome, or its dissolution, whether crouched 
 in dark ghettos or hunted by intolerant mobs the 
 
OREGON LITERATURE. 85 
 
 Passover remained our consecrated milestone, that 
 inspires us to heroic endurance and perseverance in 
 the cause of truth, and the hopes of a brighter 
 dawn on the horizon of mankind. Passing over the 
 streams and mighty rivers of time, and from mile- 
 stone to milestone, set by grief or joy, it was 
 the ever-cheering voice of Israel's songs that 
 drowned all sorrow and aroused anew our vigor, 
 marching to tempo of time's tread, ever nearer and 
 nearer to Israel's goal. The old and withering 
 walls of the middle ages began to crumble into 
 dust under the heavy stroke of the advancing age 
 of reason. With every breach a ne-w passageway 
 was made to the advanced hosts of humanitarians. 
 The Jew amongst them entered the cause dearest 
 to him, and on every battlefield he proved that the 
 heroism of the Maccabees was still abiding in his 
 race. 
 
 The final glory, however, has not yet come. 
 The battle is still going on. Here and there and 
 everywhere social questions await its final solu- 
 tion. In the heat of the combat strange revela- 
 tions of human nature are brought about. Amongst 
 these, the old prejudice has concentrated itself in 
 the opposition to Jewish freedom, honestly won 
 in the last 2000 years. But this, too, will succumb, 
 and the last blot against mankind will be wiped 
 out. Meanwhile we must not desert Israel's old 
 camping grounds. Our holy days must never de- 
 generate into mere feasting days. These must 
 
OREGON LITERATURE. 
 
 more than ever become the high watchtowers from 
 which to hail the sign of ages, and from which shall 
 float forever the old banner of Judaism, cheering 
 the old and the young, and summoning the true and 
 brave to the old song of the Passover: "O give 
 thanks to the Eternal, for he is good, for unto 
 eternity endureth his kindness." 
 
 Rabbi Bloch. 
 
 WAR. 
 
 'Extract from an editorial upon the threatened 
 war with Chili.) 
 
 Man, in all ages, has been the most destructive 
 and turbulent animal on the globe. He has always 
 delighted more in excitement and war than in 
 peace and the pursuits of learning, morality and 
 harmonious development. The world is one great 
 field of carnage where the armies of countless ages 
 have marched to battle and where millions and 
 hundreds of millions have been slain and their 
 bones strewn, layer upon layer, over every conti- 
 nent and at the bottom of every sea. One war has 
 followed another, in regular succession, in all civ- 
 ilized and savage nations, as one wave follows 
 another over the ocean. * * * The United 
 States has been the most peaceable, intelligent and 
 progressive nation of which history gives any ac- 
 count. But the spirit of war, the rattle of drums, 
 
OREG ON L I TERA T URE. 87 
 
 the sound of bugles, the neighing of prancing 
 steeds, the clashing of steel, the roar of artillery 
 and all the symbols of war of ancient times thrill 
 the hearts of the American people far beyond any 
 other passion or sentiment. The spirit of war, 
 which has desolated the earth in all ages, is not 
 dead but only slumbering in our people. We have 
 already had several wars during our brief national 
 existence and may have many more. The people 
 worship warriors great fighters for more than 
 they do the greatest intellectual and moral giants 
 the world has ever produced. No man, however 
 great he may have been intellectually and morally, 
 has ever been elected president of the United States 
 over any kind of a military hero. And no party 
 or man has ever opposed a war in this country, 
 just or unjust, without having been swept out of 
 power by popular indignation. 
 
 Hon. Harrison R. Kincaid. 
 
 ROSES AND LILIES. 
 
 The ruddy rose, amid the thorns 
 And leaflets green which she adorns; 
 Sustains her charms, preserves her grace, 
 And heavenward lifts her liovely face. 
 
 Although her rough companions pierce, 
 With lances keen and daggers fierce, 
 
OREGON LITERATURE. 
 
 The rose unsullied lives and dies 
 As do the brave, the true, the wise. 
 
 And though in life one oft receives 
 
 A pang that sorely, sadly grieves, 
 
 'Tis sweet to know that roses bloom 
 
 Midst winds and rain and thorns and gloom. 
 
 From out their bosoms pure as snow, 
 
 The lilies of the valley grow; 
 
 Their leaves are still; their heads they bow, 
 
 As if to heaven they make a vow. 
 
 Since from the heart the actions grow, 
 A duty to ourselves we owe, 
 To do the right, and that in love, 
 Though fading here to bloom above. 
 
 The roFe adds beauty to her thorns; 
 
 The lily pastures green adorns; 
 
 The world conceals its faults to please, 
 
 While innocence and lilies abound in the leas. 
 
 Aromas from these flowers unite, 
 And lure our prayers to yonder height, 
 Where mingling in sweet bliss and praise- 
 Enriching heaven through endless days. 
 
 Bloom on, bloom on, thou lily pale, 
 In meadow gr< en and fertile vale; 
 Thine own soft colors give to thee 
 A tender look of modesty. 
 
OREG ON L I TERA TURE. 89 
 
 Blush on, blush en, thou ruddy rose; 
 Thy crimson face with beauty glows: 
 Pure symbol thou of a sinless breast, 
 Where truth and peace, like angels rest. 
 
 THE MONEY GETTER. 
 
 The gold that with the sunlight lies 
 
 In bursting heaps at dawn, 
 The silver spilling from the skies 
 
 At night to walk upon, 
 The diamonds gleaming in the dew 
 He never saw, he never knew. 
 
 He got some gold dug from the mud, 
 
 Some silver crushed from stones;; 
 But the gold was red with the dead man's blood, 
 
 The silver black with groans; 
 And when he died he moaned aloud, 
 "They'll make no pocket in my shroud." 
 
 Joaquin Miller. 
 
 THE HOME OF ART. 
 
 There is an old poetic land 
 
 Of purple vales and violet heights, 
 
 Where sculptors wrought and marble breathed 
 
 And thought took wildest, widest flights, 
 
 A sea-girt land whiose crystal airs 
 
_90 OREGON LITERATURE. 
 
 Intoxicated unawares, 
 
 Where mountain peaks fenced out the world 
 
 And loneily tribes immortal grew, 
 
 Where freedom kissed the "budding soul 
 
 And let the light of genius through. 
 
 O land of Greece! O land of art! 
 
 One picture of a race confined 
 
 To God and nature, till it snatched 
 
 Joy and despair for all mankind. 
 
 Along the fair Pacific slope 
 A chain of sea-kissed, sun-kissed lands' 
 Green orchards bend with endless bloom, 
 Bright rivers roll o'er golden sands; 
 Like sentinels the white peaks rise 
 That guard this new-world paradise; 
 Deep in her valleys genius waits 
 To nurse awhile her tropic bloom 
 That yet shall burst and bear abroad 
 Immortal cycles of perfume; 
 Sierra's heights, Willamette's vales, 
 Thy inland seas and southland sun 
 As fairer yet shall yet sturpass 
 Old Delphi's fount and Helicon. 
 
 Eva Emery Dye. 
 
 FEAR INJURIOUS TO RIGHTEOUS JUDG- 
 MENT. 
 
 The judge whose judicial action is influenced by 
 fear, adds official delinquency to his miserable 
 
MRS. ABIGAIL SCOTT DUNIWAY. 
 
OREGON LITERATURE. 91 
 
 cowardice. The post of duty should not be 
 introduced to the craven-hearted. A judge who 
 is intimidated from doing his duty by the outcries 
 of the mob, or the censure of public opinion, or 
 the unjust criticisms of the press, betrays his 
 trust and fouls the fountains of justice. Our courts 
 are the sanctuaries of our liberties; their judges 
 are the guardians of our lives, our fortunes, and 
 our honor. They must have the courage of their 
 convictions, and register their decrees unawed by 
 the hand of power, uninfluenced by the voice of 
 popular clamor, and unintimidated by the threats 
 of political vengeance. They must stand as im- 
 movable as a rock in the sea, amid the rush and 
 roar of contending passions. 
 
 W. P. Lord, Governor. 
 
 WOMAN IN OREGON HISTORY. 
 
 Orators have extolled the spirit of adventure 
 characteristic of our Anglo-Saxon stock; a spirit 
 which led men, like those, to hew their way 
 through a perilous, toilsome pilgrimage to this 
 summer land of the sun-down seas. But many 
 were the women, daily companions of these men 
 of valor, with lives equal to theirs in rectitude and 
 energy, whose names, as yet, have found no place 
 in song or story, who did their part as well as any 
 man; and their memory remains today enshrined 
 
92 OREGON LITERATURE. 
 
 only in the hearts of rustic neighbors, or of their 
 descendants who knew and loved them in their 
 obscurity. Mrs. Abigail Scott Duniway. 
 
 A BIT OF LOGIC. 
 
 "I never knew so fine a population, as a whole 
 community, as I saw in Oregon most of the time 
 I was there. They were all honest, because there 
 was nothing to steal; they were all sober, because 
 there was no liquor to drink; there were no misers, 
 because there was nothing to hoard; they were in- 
 dustrious, because it was work or starve." 
 
 Peter H. Burnett. 
 
 A MAY DAY IN OREGON. 
 
 Nature smiling through her rills, streams, hills, 
 valleys and mountains, greets us this morning and 
 welcomes us to partake of her bountiful hospitality. 
 How beautiful she is. Clothed in her attractive 
 habiliments of spring; in her tender, strong, but 
 gracious reproduction of everything in her king- 
 dom for the sustenance of man. Here are flowers 
 of every hue and description, filling the air with 
 fragrance; the woods and forests are made attrac- 
 tive by the shrill notes of nature's sweet songsters. 
 Spring, in all her beauty, like hope in its innocent 
 fullness, charms as it possesses us, filling us with 
 
OREGON LITERATURE. 93 
 
 the promise of offerings the mind craves, and be- 
 speaks the approach of an abundant harvest for 
 our physical well-being; a season of plenty for the 
 husbandman, his fields, flocks and herds; a season 
 in which, with a light heart, he may go forth to 
 the hills, valleys and fields and welcome this plen- 
 teous outpouring from the liberal hand of the great 
 Giver of all things. 
 
 Governor S. F. Chadwick. 
 
 THE GROWTH OF OREGON. 
 
 f he links in the chain of personal friendship will 
 again be brightened by those of us who long ago, 
 in poverty and obscurity, shared the common toils 
 and dangers incident to the reclaiming of the wilder- 
 ness from the dominion of the savages and wild 
 beasts, causing it to "bud and blossom as the rose." 
 Those of us who have passed the meridian of life 
 can hardly realize the changes that have taken 
 place under our observation since the hopeful days 
 of our young and vigorous manhood. We have 
 witnessed the invasion of the solitude of the for- 
 ests by civilization. We have seen what we used 
 to know from our school geographies as "the great 
 American desert," stretching away nearly 2,000 
 miles west from the borders of the old republic to 
 the Pacific, dotted all over with cities, towns and 
 rich productive farms. The domestic cattle of the 
 
94 OREGON LITERATURE. 
 
 herdsman now graze upon the thousand hills over 
 which we once saw the bison and wolf roaming. 
 Great marts of trade have arisen upon spots that 
 it only seems to us like yesterday were inhabited 
 by hostile savages and wild beasts. Agricultural 
 and mechanical industries have sought out beauti- 
 ful and remote places, which we recollect as many 
 days' travel from the nearest settler's cabin. Com- 
 merce, in its ceaseless activity, not content with 
 vexing all our rivers with the steamer's prow, has 
 sought out the remote valleys, and sent the iron 
 horse to disturb with his resounding scream, sol- 
 itude which had existed since the hour of creation. 
 U. S. Senator J. W. Nesmith. 
 
 TO THE OREGON PIONEER. 
 
 The chilling autumn winds blow hard upon you 
 now; many of you are far down on the sunset side 
 of Time and will soon pass from this life. Long 
 will you and your acts be remembered by a grate- 
 ful posterity. Your early settlement of this coun- 
 try and the many dangers and difficulties you have 
 encountered will outlive the English language. 
 
 Colonel John Kelsay. 
 
 THE AMERICAN SETTLER. 
 
 The American settler was always animated 
 often it may have been unconsciously with the 
 
OREGON LITERATURE. 95 
 
 heroic thought that he was pre-eminently engaged 
 in reclaiming the wilderness building a home 
 founding an American state and extending the area 
 of liberty. He had visions, however dimly seen, 
 that he was here to do for this country what his 
 ancestors had done for savage England centuries 
 before to plant a community which in due time 
 should grow and ripen into one of the great sister- 
 hood of Anglo-American states, wherein the lan- 
 guage of the Bible, Shakespeare and Milton should 
 be spoken by millions then unborn, and the law of 
 Magna Charta and Westminster Hall be the bul- 
 wark of liberty and the buttress of order for gen- 
 erations to come, 
 erations to come. Matthew P. Deady. 
 
 SENATOR NESMITH AND HIS TUTOR. 
 
 Senator Nesmith always was passionately fond 
 of books, and, notwithstanding misfortune and 
 hardship, at that time exhibited much of the same 
 high spirit and love of fun and humor that he al- 
 ways retained. The tutor he remembered most 
 vividly was one Gregor MacGregor, to whom he 
 went to school one hundred and twenty days and 
 received one hundred thrashings. He admitted it 
 was the only school where he ever learned any- 
 thing, and, notwithstanding a genuine feeling of 
 regard for his old tutor, had vowed he would 
 thrash him if he was ever large enough. The time 
 
96 OREGON LITERATURE. 
 
 came, but he did not execute his threat. In the 
 year 1860, when Mr. Nesmith went to the United 
 States senate, he journeyed into New England to 
 revisit the scenes of his early days. He went to 
 see his old tutor, and said, "Mr. MacGregor, I have 
 always intended threshing you in return for your 
 early cruelty to me, and now I think I can do it." 
 "Weel, weel, Jeems," said the auld Scot, "if I had 
 given you a few more licks you would have been 
 in the senate long before now." 
 
 Mrs. Harriet K. M'Arthur. 
 
 BINGER HERMANN. 
 
 The following extract was taken from Binger 
 Hermann's address upon "The Life and Character 
 of the Hon. Charles Crisp, late Speaker of the 
 House of Representatives:" 
 
 "Like the spire on some lofty cathedral seen at 
 close view, when neither its true height nor its 
 majestic proportions can be accurately measured, 
 so is ex-Speaker Crisp, in according to him his 
 just place in history in so brief a period after his 
 death. His splendid life work will shine forth in 
 even greater luster as time goes on, for then the 
 mists which more or less obscure every active, 
 ambitious, genius, surrounded by enmities and 
 personal antagonisms, will have faded away, and 
 exposed to view the intrinsic worth and the per- 
 
OREGON LITERATURE. 97 
 
 feet symmetry, the strength and beauty of this 
 well-balanced life." 
 
 Again he says: "The light of our friend was 
 extinguished while it was yet day yea, at high 
 noon. He was still in the midst of his usefulness, 
 and no premonition pointed out the untimely end. 
 The summons came, and the work was done. It 
 is difficult to realize that this is true. Do we com- 
 prehend the uncertainty of life? Is it so frail? 
 We hear the answer in the expiring breath and see 
 it in the open grave. It leaves an admonition to 
 us all: "Do thy work to-day; for thee there may 
 be no to-morrow." May we not hope that if not 
 here there may be that to-morrow in the celestial 
 realms, "in that temple not made with hands, 
 eternal in the heavens?" 
 
 ASCENT OF MOUNT HOOD. 
 
 (The following is the closing^ of an account of 
 the "Ascent of Mount Hood made by Rev. H. K. 
 Hines, D. D., in July 1866. The paper was pre- 
 pared for the Royal Geographical Society of Lon- 
 don, by request of Sir Robert Brown, of Edinburg, 
 Scotland, and was read before that society which 
 passed unanimously a resolution of thanks to Dr. 
 Hines, which was conveyed to him by letter with 
 the personal compliments of Sir Roderick Marchi- 
 son, who was then its president. It is given as a 
 specimen of Dr. Hines' descriptive writing.) 
 
OREGON LITERATURE. 
 
 Standing upon the summit of the mountains 
 when the ethereal brightness of the early northern 
 summer was spread over the landscape near and 
 far, it was given me to behold scenes that were 
 their own and only parallel. I am in despair, go 
 where I may on earth, of finding others like them. 
 It was not the sublimity of the great mountains 
 alone, nor yet the altitude which lifted me so high 
 above the rolling, billowy breast of the great ranges 
 sleeping their rocky slumbers so far beneath my 
 feet, eastward, westward, southward and northward 
 away to the far and blue horizon. It was not the 
 reaching in and out of the great glittering river- 
 flow which cleft mountain from mountain like a 
 silver sea, and seemed ever listening to the whis- 
 pering forth and back of tempest and lightning 
 from pinnacle to pinnacle far above its sleeping 
 sweetness. It was all these, and much more, aggre- 
 gating and blending their sublimities in a creation 
 of indescribable grandeur before and below me. 
 And then, above, the sky seemed so near! almost 
 within the touch of my fingers. Where I had so 
 often seen the clouds wander on their airy journeys 
 so far above was now as far below. They were 
 silver-flecked robes wrapping the icy foot of the 
 mountain, and I stood far on their sunward side 
 and gazed down on their shining broidery of in- 
 finite brightness. And yonder, near a hundred 
 miles northward, the storm-king broke his clouds 
 and dashed his thunderbolts in harmless violence 
 
OREGON LITERATURE. 
 
 against the rocky sides and icy glaciers of Mount 
 Adams, whose peaks glowed in unclouded light 
 above the swift beat of the storm. The hour was 
 auspicious, as if chosen of God, in which to greet 
 the footsteps of mortal where few but the Immortal 
 had ever trod before. It was a glorious welcome 
 to this colossal masterpiece of His creation. 
 
 Yonder, two hundred miles to the north, the 
 huge, rugged, inverted icicles of Mount Baker 
 pierce the snowy drifts fallen around their base, 
 while in the intervals between are deep ravines, 
 vast gorges, and rude, craggy peaks, as if the earth- 
 quakes had taken this whole western world in 
 their frenzied arms and tossed its mightiest rocks 
 in wild disorder across the plains. South, another 
 hundred miles, over the deep chasms of rivers, and 
 the dread blackness of vast lava-piles frozen into 
 rock by the winter of ages, Diamond Peak seems 
 almost a rival to the mountain on which I stand. 
 Eastward, in the foreground, sweep far away the 
 golden plains of the Des Chutes, John Day and 
 Umatilla rivers, enframed within the pmey crests 
 of the great Blue Mountain range, a hundred and 
 fifty miles distant. On the west the evergreen sum- 
 mits of the Coast range cut clear against the blue 
 sky, with the Willamette valley, unsurpassed MI 
 beauty on the earth, a hundred miles in length, 
 sleeping in quiet loveliness at their feet. The 
 broad, silver belt of the Columbia, without a peer 
 in grandeur and purity on the continent, winds 
 
100 OREGON LITERATURE. 
 
 down through its bordering of sunlit vales and 
 shaded hills towards the ocean, which I see blend- 
 ing with the blue of the horizon through the broad 
 vista between the lofty capes that sentinel its en- 
 trance to the sea, an hundred and fifty miles away. 
 Within these almost measureless limits, which I 
 had but to turn upon my heel to sweep with my 
 vision, was every variety of vale and mountain, lake 
 and prairie, bold, beetling precipices and gracefully 
 rounded summits, blending and melting into each 
 other, and forming a whole unutterable magnif- 
 icence. 
 
 Now, as often as thought recurs to the moment 
 when I stood upon that awful height, the same 
 awe of the Infinite God "who setteth fast the mount- 
 ains, being girded with power," comes over my 
 soul. I praise Him that He gave me strength to 
 stand where his power speaks with words few mor- 
 tals ever heard, and the reverent worshippings of 
 mountains and solitudes seem ever flowing up to 
 His Throne. 
 
 UNIVERSAL EDUCATION. 
 
 When many people at the same time manifest 
 great interest in an object, a strong current of pop- 
 ular opinion sets in towards that object an irre- 
 sistible current. When the balance of ignorance in 
 a community is greater than the balance of know- 
 
OREGON LITERA TURE. 101 
 
 ledge, it is certainly time that the current should 
 be formed. Yes, even before the community be- 
 gins to suffer for want of knowledge. 
 
 TKe interest manifested in education by this 
 country is an indication of our high appreciation 
 of the necessity and benefits of schools. The 
 schools are a power for good. Whatever a citizen 
 can do to aid popular education, aids the develop- 
 ment of the community in which he lives; aids it 
 materially as well as spiritually. 
 
 I would beg leave to state that the moral and 
 intellectual welfare, that the material welfare of this 
 mighty nation is in the hands of the school teach- 
 ers is dependent upon the education of its citizens. 
 
 The safety of our republican and democratic form 
 of government will be found in universal education. 
 It is not enough to teach reading, writing, and 
 arithmetic, but philosophy, literature, aesthetics and 
 higher culture in all the branches of human know- 
 ledge. The foundation of our educational estab- 
 lishment was laid on a rock near the Atlantic- 
 additions to the original have been built until now 
 it reaches the far-off Pacific. May the structure 
 rise and rise until it reaches Heaven. 
 
 Prof. B. J. Hawthorne. 
 
 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 (Extract from address delivered upon the looth 
 anniversary of Washington's inauguration as 
 
102 OREGON LITERATURE. 
 
 president of the United States). 
 
 We live in a land of promise and beauty. Our 
 state is on the threshold of a great career. We 
 are rapidly increasing in population, wealth and 
 power. Our thoughts stretch away in wonder at 
 what Oregon will be when this celebration is re- 
 peated at the end of another hundred years. Noth- 
 ing is necessary to stimulate the material progress 
 of our state, but eternal vigilance is the price of 
 moral character. Our fields may excel in the fruits 
 of the earth, our mountains unbosom their mineral 
 riches, our commerce bring the wealth of foreign 
 lands to our shores; but all these will be as dross 
 if they pour their treasures into the lap of a de- 
 bauched and degraded people. Oregon, with all 
 its advantages, may aspire to stand in moral com- 
 parison among her sister states, as Mount Hood 
 stands among the other mountains, robed in 
 whiteness and purity. To put our young state 
 upon this eminence should be the great ambition 
 of our people. Let us labor to this end. Let the 
 rich man give his money, the intellectual man his 
 learning, and all others their influence, to build up 
 our state upon the solid foundations of intelligence 
 and virtue. Money and merchandise are transient 
 and perishable; but this is something that moth 
 and rust cannot corrupt, nor thieves break through 
 and steal. Let us do our full duty in this respect, 
 and future generations will be as grateful to us 
 as we are to Washington and his compeers, and 
 

 GEORGE H. WILLIAMS, AUTHOR OF "OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES.' 
 
OREGON LITERATURE. 103 
 
 when we are gone we shall live on in our influ- 
 ence, and our good works will smell sweet and 
 blossom in the dust. 
 
 On the banks of the Potomac, in the City of 
 Washington, stands a monument to the memory 
 of him who has been affectionately called the father 
 of his country. Towering above the dome of the 
 capitol, the highest of all human structures, it 
 represents the gratitude of a great nation, and the 
 grandeur of a great life. Every state has a stone 
 in that monument, indicative of its hope and faith 
 in the Federal Union, and every stone symbolizes a 
 prayer that our republic may withstand sectional 
 and party strife as this majestic pile of marble 
 withstands the storm-clouds that break upon the 
 summit. To us and to all posterity, this monu- 
 ment makes a sublime appeal always to bear in 
 mind that the only way that our nation can be 
 preserved is to transfuse into its life the patriotism 
 and purity that graced the life of Washington. 
 George H. Williams, ex-Attorney General, U. 
 S. A. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 The literature of the past has been the heavy 
 substantial foundation material to be used as the 
 basis for the literature of the incoming century, the 
 noble superstructure of the coming ages. With the 
 light of the past fifty years beaming upon us we 
 
104 OREGON LITERATURE. 
 
 can see how the literature of the pioneer will give 
 strength and support to the literature of the future. 
 Then, along with other influences, we shall draw 
 from Grecian art, Italian music, German tenderness, 
 ness, Spanish passion, Yankee shrewdness, French 
 vivacity, Irish wit, English sense, Indian courage, 
 and Oregon dreams and visions; and Oregon lit- 
 erature will rank as American literature, which is 
 English literature under a different sky. 
 
 Of the future literature of Oregon it may be said 
 that peace, home, and prosperity will be the probable 
 themes themes that are contemplated in the quiet 
 of the home, and enjoyed by the really progressive 
 classes. Agricultural and pastoral life will not be 
 slighted. Nor will the sons of the men, who made 
 the country, permit to be forgotten the legends 
 incident to the life of the settler, and the trials of 
 the Indian who was gradually crowded out of his 
 home that we might be favored. We have our 
 Minnchahas, our Niagaras, our mountain chains, 
 wonderful caves, and delightful scenes awaiting the 
 touch of the pen and the brush of the artist and 
 the poet. And while there has been enough suf- 
 fering and privation already endured in the history 
 of our state to quicken the heart and fire the imag- 
 ination of the orator and the poet, culture and 
 schools will temper the sentiment with philosophy 
 and adorn it with artistic beauty; and as a result, 
 the future Oregonian bids fair to live that higher 
 literary life which it is given every man in this 
 land to enjoy.