Page:History of Oregon Literature.djvu/391

 important quality is absent. For all the careful grouping of topics by the compiler, they still lack full unity and consecutiveness and they still incorporate much of stale timeliness, both of which, under the circumstances, would be expected. Something else, some basic ingredient, is missing. Does their disappointment to later readers come from their sketchy background and small units of size? Contemporary readers were familiar with what he was talking about, so that he could conveniently interpret situations without fully portraying them; and did he write so many short pieces during 45 years of professional journalism that he lost or never developed the ability to cover a subject with scope and fullness?

He had a literary style sufficient to take him any distance, but he did not otherwise possess enough of the high requisites of literature. Though he ascended to the summit of journalism, he did not step to the plane above it, largely because he found the other elevation so pleasant and so much to his taste.

The rank and file of the people have been somewhat indifferent towards his six volumes, available to them in a limited way, in public libraries, but there might be compiled from his writings one book of a few hundred pages that would have a general and a permanent appeal. This book would consist of his biographical sketches. It was to these that special reference was made by Dr. Joseph Schafer, an historian possessing rare literary appreciation and discrimination, in his address at the unveiling of the Scott statue in 1933:

No summary of Scott's writings on Pacific Northwest history, however concise, can omit a reference to that noble