uriantly in verse that celebrated local events and scenes. His “Song of the Sword” has been ranked as one of the five great battle-pieces of the world. There is nothing amateur, nothing crude in Simpson’s work; he has the form and completeness of a classic with the subject matter of a new land. One day Oregon may build a shrine to the memory of him who bore
“One of the few immortal names
That were not born to die.”[ua 1]
Another Oregon genius from “the plains across” is Ella Higginson. She, too, came as an infant, from a log-cabin in Kansas. Her first book, “The Flower that Grew in the Sand,” was published in Seattle in 1896.[ua 2] In the same year the Macmillan Company, of New York, secured the copyright and brought out new editions under the title, “From the Land of the Snow Pearls.”[ua 3] In 1897 the same firm published her second book, “A Forest Orchid, and Other Tales.”[ua 4] In 1898 her first volume of poems, “When the Birds Go North Again,” appeared. Her story, “The Takin’ In of Old Mis’ Lane,” won the $500 prize from McClure, and is the one of which the New Orleans Picayune said, “We suggest that it be made the model of a perfect
- ↑ This line is lifted from Halleck’s “Marco Bozzaris”. (Wikisource contributor note)
- ↑ The Flower that Grew in the Sand, and Other Stories, by Ella Higginson (1896) (external scan) (Wikisource contributor note)
- ↑ From the Land of the Snow-Pearls: Tales from Puget Sound, by Ella Higginson (external scan) (Wikisource contributor note)
- ↑ A Forest Orchid, and Other Stories, by Ella Higginson (external scan) (Wikisource contributor note)
