Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 14.djvu/142

 In the later years of his life Mr. Scott went much to the East. These visits he greatly enjoyed. His reputation, long an established quantity in the professional world, had expanded into fame. He stood among the leaders in his profession—a towering survival of the older and better fashion in journalism. He found too an appreciation among statesmen and men of affairs which was gratifying to him. No man of discriminating power to whom Mr. Scott ever gave ten minutes time failed to discover the qualities of the man. Men like Henry Watterson and Whitelaw Reid, with whom he fell into cordial association, quickly saw that here was a mind of high powers. After a lifetime of isolation he thus came in his later years familiarly into association with leaders in the world of national affairs. To the new relationship he brought the zest of one who had known little of the gracious phases of life outside his local circle. Without his being in the least conscious of it, it opened up to him something approaching a new career. Every man of laborious habit is more or less exhilarated under detachment from his customary tasks and by association with new people, and none more than Mr. Scott. With a pleasure not unmixed with pride I recall an evening or two passed with him in New York and in distinguished company where in a conversational sense he held the center of the stage, bearing himself in it with a power and a charm which seemed almost like an effect of intoxication. Only a few months before his death the late Whitelaw Reid told me of an occasion where Mr. Scott with himself and others dined as the guests of Archbishop Corrigan. "Scott," said Mr. Reid, "came late and was obviously embarrassed by the fact that he had kept the company waiting for nearly an hour. His annoyance reacted in a kind of mental exhilaration. We were about twenty at dinner, Mr. Scott sitting at the left of His Grace. Almost immediately when the time for general talk began a question addressed to him by the host brought from Mr. Scott a reply which exhibited his acquaintance with theological scholarship. The