Page:History of Oregon Literature.djvu/476

 rider," she remarks, "than I will ever be as a writer." In the period when she was turning out her books of stories and poems, she spent more time with her horse and her dogs than she did with people, but she has never been lacking in sociability. In later days, with a few intimate friends, she has enjoyed playing contract bridge and hearing and telling clever stories. During an illness of nearly three years, she has been ordered to remain quietly at home, seeing no one and doing nothing, "but," she points out, "they can't keep me from thinking." So she writes poems of fresh beauty and perfect technique and letters full of cheerfulness and bright philosophy, in extemporaneous sentences that are technically flawless, with an unerring impact upon the understanding and the senses.

The grace of that literary mastery, a brave spirit, honesty without deviation but without austerity, wisdom without bitterness, generosity, gentility, friendliness—these characterize the Ella Higginson of today and, if the records may be believed, have long characterized her. This essay has been partly based upon perhaps 50 other articles about her and her books, and where they refer to her personal qualities their testimony is unqualified as to her charm as a woman. She has frequently overworked, has been subject to bursts of temper, has not been one to take a dare, has played jokes upon her friends with her realism, has been marked by a few but only a very few literary idiosyncracies, and, as part of her strong sincerity, has had a practical interest in the success of her writings. But she is so honest that when she spoke of skylarks in Oregon she was careful to call them fugitive skylarks