Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 14.djvu/103

Rh him, and in his bearing there was something of the arbitrariness of a resolute character developed under the conditions of pioneer life. He held very definite notions of things not always carefully considered, and 'not infrequently there was collision of opinions between father and son, in which the former, despite the developments of time and the enlarged dignities of the latter, never lost the sense of patriarchal authority. However others might defer to the knowledge and judgment of the son, the father in leonine spirit would oftentimes seek to bear him down. Yet there was between the two men a singularly deep affection, in the father taking the form of a glowing pride, and in the son of a respect amounting almost to veneration.

Mr. Scott—I speak now of the son—was subject always to moods of dejection. There were times when it was difficult to arouse in him any sense of the pleasant and hopeful side of life. I have seen him in these moods unnumbered times and can recall but one other—that of the death of a promising son —in which he showed such intense feeling as upon the death of his father. For days as he sat in his office or tramped the hillsides—and to this he was much given at all times—he would pour forth from the storehouse of his memory floods of elegaic poetry with sombre phrases from the literature of the ages. I know of nothing within the range of human passion more painful than the grief of a strong man; and there is impressed upon my memory in connection with the death of John Tucker Scott a most pathetic picture. In one sense it was mute, for no direct word was spoken, yet it colored Mr. Scott's thoughts for many weeks and stimulated in him that sense of the mystery of life which was always at the background of his serious thinking.

Of Mr. Scott's mother, Anne Roelofson, I can only speak from the basis of family tradition and in respect of the sustained affection in which long after her death she was held by her children. I do not remember ever to have heard Mr.