Page:History of Oregon Literature.djvu/334

 he then and there, through my urging and advice, under took and carried through the work of collecting and prepar ing a volume of his poems for publication. He did not have in his possession a single scrap of the many gems he had scattered broadcast to our Western breezes. 1 had many of his choicer poems, however, carefully pasted away in a scrap-book, which, with others procured from different sources, formed the nucleus for an interesting volume.

It was a part of the programme that he was to indite some new pieces to go with it; but so dilatory was he in getting his muse in right temper for the fray, that I began to think the additions from this source would not be large. When he did get down to work, however, his industry was what amazed me. I thought he would never stop. Many of his best poems were written on that occasion, with anything but poetical surroundings to inspire his verse, so that when he left Josephine county he carried with him a completed volume of resplendent song. My own valued usufruct of the performance consisted in several first-draft copies of the new pieces. This will explain how I came to be custodian of so much of his manuscript. The finished product which he intended for publication, of course, was often different from the first-draft copy but in the absence of the ripened fruit some idea of its quality may be formed from the specimens we have at our command. But his book, so far as I am advised, never saw the light of publication day. The printing-house that undertook its publication, I believe, failed after it had the entire volume in type.

Dashings of Oregon was to have been the title of the book, suggested by Bryant's beautiful lines....

His preface you will find enclosed with this communication.

Very truly yours, WM. W. FIDLER.

Wm. W. Fidler also contributed to the issue of the Oregon Historical Quarterly for December, 1914, an article entitled "Personal Recollections of Samuel L.