Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 14.djvu/151

Rh acter suffered nothing neither his duties nor his studies ever to interfere with the fondest of human obligations.

It was not Mr. Scott's way to talk much about the sentiments which were the spiritual guides of his life and the sources of his power. But now and again quite unconsciously there would come from him that which revealed the inner springs of the man. Of many such utterances I think perhaps that in which he set forth the character of the late Judge Williams most clearly summarized Mr. Scott's own standards of intellectual and moral worth. Of Judge Williams Mr. Scott wrote:

""In him personal integrity, intellectual sincerity, intuitive perception of the leading facts of every important situation, quick discernment and faculty of separation of the important features of any subject from its incidental and accidental circumstances, with clearness of statement and power of argument unsurpassed, marked the outlines of his personal character. He was a man who never lost his equipoise, nor ever studied or posed to produce sensational or startling effects. I"n his private life and demeanor there was the same simplicity of character, evenness of judgment and temper and unaffectedness of action. His immense powers, of which he himself never seemed unaware, were always at his command.""

Here we have not more Mr. Scott's view of Judge Williams than a presentment of his own ideals his own measure of a man.

I come with reluctance to the end of a recital for I have attempted only a recital of things tending to illustrate the character and life of a very extraordinary and very helpful man. He came, as we have seen, into leadership of public thought i'n Oregon at a time when the character of the country was in the making. His work in journalism lay at the sources of a stream of life which grew large under his hand