Page:Oregon Literature by Horner.djvu/133

Rh when we are gone we shall live on in our influence, and our good works will smell sweet and blossom in the dust.

On the banks of the Potomac, in the City of Washington, stands a monument to the memory of him who has been affectionately called the father of his country. Towering above the dome of the capitol, the highest of all human structures, it represents the gratitude of a great nation, and the grandeur of a great life. Every state has a stone in that monument, indicative of its hope and faith in the Federal Union, and every stone symbolizes a prayer that our republic may withstand sectional and party strife as this majestic pile of marble withstands the storm-clouds that break upon the summit. To us and to all posterity, this monument makes a sublime appeal always to bear in mind that the only way that our nation can be preserved is to transfuse into its life the patriotism and purity that graced the life of Washington.

—George H. Williams, ex-Attorney General, U. S. A.

The literature of the past has been the heavy substantial foundation material to be used as the basis for the literature of the incoming century, the noble superstructure of the coming ages. With the light of the past fifty years beaming upon us we