One of the prettiest little valleys the homeseeker chanced to find in the early days of Oregon, was an amphitheater excavated in the Blue mountains, a thousand feet deep. Every passer-by has noticed its symmetry, remarked its beauty, been inspired with its grandeur, and longed to linger within its great rugged walls. Clear atmosphere, lofty sky, sublimity and sunshine, save when the black storm-cloud angrily crawls up close behind Mount Emily, and with thundering threats sends the stampeding herds pell-mell into the deep canyons, to hide from winds that sway the fir, the tamarack, and the pine. It is one of those places where the heavens fit down so closely over the mountain rim, that the valley and the heavens seem to make up the whole world. In fact, it is world enough for those who live there. Nature made it the abode of home-building, progress and contentment; and the immigrants who settled there seldom have left it to return to the land whence they came.

Once, according to an ancient legend, some Frenchmen traveled that way, and, having ascended a ridge where the old emigrant road peeped over the crest, at the vision lying ahead, suddenly exclaimed "Grand Ronde!" It was in the month of May, and the first view of the picturesque valley broke in upon them at a time when that spot of emerald,

No. 5.

Three in Poetry and Two

hidden away in the Blue mountains, waves like a summer sea-a time when the lightning begins to sparkle on the minarets above, and a hundred mineral springs steadily send up clouds of hot steam, rarefying the lower atmosphere and inviting the cool, exhilarating breezes from the high snowcliffs of the Powder river range. Such was the scene that inspired the Frenchmen to exclaim "Grand Ronde," a name which the geographers have been repeating ever since, a name which will be perpetuated in prose and song.

Such was the childhood home of Mrs. Ella Higginson, the charming poetess and noted story-writer, whose life work bids fair to honor the name of the delightful valley in which her early thoughts were nurtured. Born at Council Grove, Kansas, she crossed the plains while an infant, and with her parents located in La Grande, which is beautifully situated on the most prominent dais of Grand Ronde valley. The country was sparsely settled, and as yet untried. New people, immigrants, were constantly passing through the town where the whites and the Indians came to trade; and there were ponies and ponies and ponies. And it was then that little May Rhodes, afterward Mrs. Ella Higginson, acquired the love and the art of horseback riding. Sidesaddles and riding steeds were as fashionable then as in the

days of Queen Elizabeth; and it is said that the little schoolgirl determined to excel the horsemanship of the queen who made England one of the first nations of Europe. It was her delight, and she practiced the art. On her swift steed she swept over the valley, and drank in the poetry of the scenes, the anthem of the winds, and the voice of the thunder as it broke through the mountain gorge. These attuned her muse, and she began to sing to a delighted people. Thus gradually she became a master with the rein and the pen.

True poetry is what the muse has learned in nature without the aid of books-simply direct communion with. created things. In order to fathom these wonders, the poet chooses to be alone. where naught can disturb him. Solitude. is his opportunity, and silence his study hour. He lives amid his thoughts, hence partakes of the sights and the sounds that inspire them. He loves nature's works, for he sees God in everything about him. The lily, the nightingale, the waters and the mountains, all become living things to him, and their influence upon him is but another one of God's marvelous dealings with man. N. P. Willis, upon visiting the American rapids, applied this thought in these words: "This opportunity to invest Niagara with a human soul and human feelings, is a common effect upon the minds of visitors, in every part of its wonderful phenomena." Of the influence of scenery upon the feelings and actions, Bayard Taylor, upon viewing the same falls from another point, wrote: "I was not impressed by the sublimity of the scene, nor even by its terror, but solely by the fascination of its wonderful beauty-a fascination which continually tempted me to plunge into the sea of fused emerald, and lose myself in the

dance of the rainbows." Anthony Trollope, although not a poet, has recognized this principle in his utterances upon visiting the falls: "You will find yourself among the waters, as though you belonged to them. The cool, liquid green will run through your veins, and the voice of the cataract will be the expression of your own heart. You will fall as the bright waters fall, rushing down into your new world with no hesitation and with no dismay; and you will rise again as the spray rises, bright, beautiful and pure." Accordingly it must not be forgotten that the poetess, whose life and works we are studying, lived for a long time beside the Willamette falls at Oregon City. Nor must the fact be overlooked that the Willamette falls are but a common-sense edition of the Niagara falls, which so many critics have said stimulate genius and influence poetic art. There is a rumble and a dashing in the lines Mrs. Higginson has written, that echo back to the splendid dashing and rhythmic rumble of the mighty falls of our poetic river.

From Oregon City she moved to Portland, Oregon, where she met, loved and was married to Mr. Russell Carden Higginson, a gentleman of Boston culture, who descended from Francis Higginson, one of the founders of New England. In 1882, she with her husband moved to New Whatcom, where they have since resided in their cozy upland home, which furnishes a commanding view of the snow domes and the hills, the ocean and the shore, that have suggested so many themes the authoress has written in pretty musical English, for the peoples of two continents.

While Mrs Higginson writes both poetry and prose excellently, she has proven herself a true poet, both in verse and in lines not set in metrical array. Many