IN MEMORY OF DR. ROBERT ABBE 1851-1928 Sylvia Hie with the Camel regards of William Laurum august 1928. IN MEMORY OF DR. ROBERT ABBE IN MEMORY OF DR. ROBERT ABBE PORTLAND MAINE THE MOSHER PRESS MDCCCCXXVIII FOREWORD R. ABBE'S beauti- ful life of unself- ishness, heroism, and work for D.C humanity have been such an example to many that quotations from his letters to a devoted friend are published with the hope they may help others. IN MEMORIAM IN MEMORIAM E all have our little troubles day after day-but they seem to me nothing compared to the joys of living and enjoying God's blessings and sharing them with others. The last few days and nights have been merciless and I have strength but to send you a few lines,-yet the world is cheerful and my friends stead- fast. 4 IN MEMORIAM Particular pleasure comes to me from watching myself, as I have watched others for a long life time habit. So closely do I note every sign that I almost feel that I have never before done justice to any one. This makes me wish to start life again and to do better. But this is not the law of nature. I am through with strenuous life-but am more than ever competent to grasp the beauty and reality of "things as they are," all about. At present the beauty of Spring; the sky at dawn; the fresh verdure; the crisp breezes that blow from the skies;- floating, scudding clouds-all have a new charm, now I IN MEMORIAM 5 realize how near I came to missing them all; and above all the pleasure my friends show that I am still on the planet. My quiet and the good care I am getting, are filling up my account in the "Bank of Health." New York, April 17, 1924. [In speaking of Christmas, Dr. Abbe wrote in New York, 1924.] This is the great gathering day of all congenial souls. It is especially a sense of thanks- giving that comes to me with the New Year, that I am to be able to continue to study 6 IN MEMORIAM the Indian history of our park region. My swans, too, are reported happy, contented at Brook End, and I shall enjoy another happy summer there. My cup of happiness is very full. I firmly believe that it is a duty to the Divine Power that gives us this mysterious life, that we prolong our lives by every Art, to do the things set for us by circumstance of our environment, to be done. Every day is a joy to me. When I contemplate the North Pole adventures, their risks of life, bravery, enthus- iasm and success, I take courage. IN MEMORIAM 7 Conquest only comes from persistent climbing upward. Often it seems like the excite- ment I have felt when climbing Sargent or Green Mountain, or Fujiyama in Japan,-the nearer one gets to the top, the harder it seems,-then all of a sudden one gets there. That glorious experience I have had many, many times in every field of adventure, in Surgery, Science, or climbing, and I like the game. New York, May 3, 1926. Welcome to this Divine Spot. All nature holds out her glories to you once again, as the warm sunshine kisses 8 IN MEMORIAM the fragrant pines this lovely morning. It has been a health restor- ing, wonder working air for me the past fortnight-and it is an added joy to know that you will feel the Alpine freshness of this Maine air. Bar Harbor, June 26, 1924. The wonder of this sudden solitude of nature-with the birds and animals so forced into the same shut-in life that faces SO many cities, is like a romance of nature, for a few days only. People almost for- get their individual troubles, in contemplating these beauti- ful mysteries and marvels of change in nature. It seems IN MEMORIAM 9 like a holiday for nature. As if the world got tired and stopped to think what life is all about. New York, Feb. II, 1926. Marvelous indeed is Nature's laboratory. It gives me a thrill to drink in beauty in any of her bits of scenic beauty or growing plant detail of trees or flowers. I sympathize with one's quiet solitary horse back rides in Bar Harbor-, when one communes alone with "her various moods" as Bryant wrote, and as Weir Mitchell practiced. New York, May I3, 1925. 10 IN MEMORIAM Success is due to taking advantage of every oppor- tunity offered and to per- sistent hard work,-and cour- age to go on; because the world has no use for dis- couraged men and women. New York, March 2, 1926. The moment I heard of Mrs. Kane's long expected end, my memory went back to Grace Church, where we could see her in her loveliness in her pew, and Mrs. Kings- land and you in the one next ours. To-day I shall go to the short service here, and think it all over. That's the sacred hour when one can most IN MEMORIAM 11 feelingly reminisce on the power of such a life. To me funeral services have always had a sacred beauty, as I never go to one unless I have loved or revered the one we seek to know. Bar Harbor, July 8, 1926. It was very dear of you to call up and have my nurse tell me your thoughts reverted to me on the death of Wood- row Wilson. I have faced almost every professional and business friend I have for many years, defending his altruism and intellectual supremacy, as well as the nobility of his patriotism. 12 IN MEMORIAM Indeed, I have discounted every personality, and his homely face (which he acknowledges so early in his public life). If I believed stories which the world circulates about public men whom I have known to be exalted in thought and life, I would not be the optimist I am, as to humanity. It gratifies my soul to read the tributes that fall from SO many lips-so many that I have ceased to cut them out of the papers-preferring to mark them for others to read. Never have I allowed acri- monious discussion to disturb my friendship. Now that sorrow has placed IN MEMORIAM 13 a wreath on his memory I am content. It was a noble thought that made his burial place a climax that was fitting and welcome to all his admirers. The world will now weed out the chaff and keep the wheat. And the wheat will bear seed a hundred-fold for the good of the nations. You were very good to place my name in the Town Hall auditorium with the delightful list of my friends, which was sprung on me last week. Never have I been more honored, and I thank you with others. I did not know I had SO many friends. By singular coincidence, I had endowed a chair myself, 14 IN MEMORIAM to one who really deserves it, Madame Curie. She and Pasteur are the only foreign names among the two hundred or more already given names on the seventeen hundred seats in Town Hall. I wrote her about it to-day, having had a delightful letter from her only yesterday, acknowledging the Christmas card of my swans. She did not resent my naming the swans after Pierre and Marie Curie, but took it as one of the thousand minor honors which fall to the lot of all great people, like her, who inci- dentally really treasure them all, after their hard, hard struggle. I am sending you, in a few IN MEMORIAM 15 days a copy of her autobi- ography and her biography of Pierre Curie, both of which are SO beautifully told by her, that they will go far to create more and more sincere workers in Science. Scientists are in hot pursuit of truth-develop- ing every day and unfolding a scroll which doubles the revelation of the Bible story of Christ. New York, Feb. 7, 1924. The news of your dear sister-in-law's death was sad indeed. My memory at once was taken back to a similar inci- dent occurring to one of my patients, forty years ago, 16 IN MEMORIAM which left a scar on my grow- ing experience of serious life, and compels me now to con- sider how many scars we have in life, that are necessary to make up a sum total and offset the thousand happy experi- ences that are always occurring to every one. We have no right to magnify events, which we class as unhappy, and let them weigh down the scales. In the same moment, we toss off any gloom, that mars not only our own joy in living, but destroys our usefulness to others. New York, Oct. 9, 1927. I rose at seven, motored from my front door, in the IN MEMORIAM 17 crisp morning air, far up the Bronx Park Highway-to a point three miles beyond the Bronx Park, where the mag- nificent spectacle of the eclipse was already near the climax. There in the serene quiet of a country blanketed in white snow-we all stood by the road side marine glasses in hand, as the sudden grandeur of the eclipse occurred. This lasted more than one minute. It was awe inspiring. Superb. I had seen the same when I was twenty years old and a senior at college, full of astro- nomical study and enthusiasm. My oldest brother was an astronomer, director of the large observatory at Cincin- nati-and organized a party 18 IN MEMORIAM of seven Scientists to study the eclipse of 1869-at the farthest point west-Mt. Sioux Falls, North Dakota, then a wild Indian country. We travelled across prairies a hundred miles beyond civilized frontier towns, and had a glorious reward. I never for- got the spectacle. Yet, this, to my maturer mind, was even grander. When I returned home this time, I at once took out my brush and water colors, and made a picture, while the colors and form, were still fresh in my mind. Can you imagine the acute enjoyment that inspired morn- ing ride gave me. Once again I had seen IN MEMORIAM 19 through my strong Maine glasses, the marvellous exhibi- tion of the burning red flames of hydrogen gas; flaring up into space ten thousand miles high from the edge of the sun-A Dante picture. As I think of it, I am still appalled. How insignificant we seem-and yet how great each of us is in the eye of our Creator. Considering the atom, as Science knows it now, and the indestructibility of matter, I know there is no such thing as death. We change to some other and more wonderful life-if we deserve it. A beautiful and inspired article in the Atlantic, three months ago, by that deep thinker, 20 IN MEMORIAM Professor Jacks of Oxford- gave me more joy than any- thing I have read in years. It was on the "Challenge of Death." It was convincing. New York, Jan. 28, 1925. The grateful poem of Angela Morgan is more full of mean- ing to me than ever. Her opening verse has a new inter- pretation this week, because of the revelation, or discovery of the "Cosmic Rays," which will probably be known in future Science as the "Milli- ken Rays," on account of the author who has just announced the discovery, from California. I know this wonderful man and have been deeply moved IN MEMORIAM 21 this week by reading his wonderful article in Science. He has been a profound student of radium and "the atom." He found that the radium rays leaked out of his delicate instruments in some mysterious way. Three years ago he sent up a balloon with a miniature device, ten miles away from the earth; nine- tenths of the earth's atmos- phere. And the leakage was greater. That eliminated the earth's influence. Then he went to the highest and deepest mountain lake, on Mt. Whit- ney and sank the testing instrument sixty feet deep- at night and in day time- again the leakage. Thus was proved there are radiant rays 22 IN MEMORIAM (atoms) streaming throughout space from star to star, through infinite space. The majestic phenomenon is profound. It is nearer the conception of the infinite world creative power-God, in the highest sense. "Present every- where, in the dark sea water and in the silver air," as the poem goes. It has been a rejuvenating thought to me. New York, Nov. 25, 1925. As the adorable Spring sea- son comes again, my thoughts turn to that invigorating Maine coast-and days fly by as I dream of Brook End-, my friends and the growing park interests-which seem to IN MEMORIAM 23 occupy more of my thought, than my own health, even. The things that are really worth while, seem to me to be the beauty of Nature, the growth, development, decay and regeneration, or resurrec- tion of life, with each Easter Season. Our own parts in the great drama, are to help on the upward growth toward ulti- mate perfection;-though we are infinitely below it-nothing that has happened in my life, shows a backward trend;- even the great war, with the publication of criminal records, is nothing, to compare with the revelations of Science, the deeper understanding of the magnitude of the universe and 24 IN MEMORIAM the more penetrating under- standing of the mystery of life-, biological research, I mean. My own gratitude that I can see my way to prolong my life indefinitely, is a delightful and inspiring thought, such as nothing before has ever come to me, because, probably, for every one the end of life always seems SO remote that we give it no thought. Would that I had talked freely with Weir Mitchell, or some one who had clairvoyant vision. Such people are rare indeed. New York, April 9, 1925. How great was Weir Mitchell's power to place him- IN MEMORIAM 25 self in his patients' place and exert the power of his mag- netism, and deeper under- standing. He gave himself and never felt the loss, but rejuvenated his power by exercise of his native wisdom, more than any one I ever knew. I do not wonder that you still feel the vitalizing manner of speech and countenance that are associated with his memory. One cannot forget him-,and no one wants to. New York, Oct. 9, 1927. As a last word before leaving I must tell you how I laughed heartily last evening over your exaggerated rating of my cour- 26 IN MEMORIAM age, when, out of a clear sky, I was suddenly seized with a sharp attack of gout in my left foot. Indeed I felt for a moment like giving up and destroying your delusion,- when it suddenly came to me that an unexpected chance had come to see if I really had any fight. All night I took strong anti- gout remedies and hour by hour felt the clouds roll back. This morning I am laughing at Fate again and am once more on the winning side. The pleasures of life are all in the way you look at them. Bar Harbor, Sept. I4, 1925. IN MEMORIAM 27 Please give my very best thanks to your friend for his lovely thought of me and gift of his first salmon. It touched me very deeply, for I am sensitive to a degree, to all the courtesies and remembrances that mean the best in Life's joyous pil- grimage. Yesterday I had another beautiful treat when some fifteen of the loveliest young boys and girls of the Summer Colony, were brought by their teacher, to hear about the Indians and see the map which centers their interest in the former owners and dwellers on this beautiful "land of the dawn" as they called it. I told them much of the 28 IN MEMORIAM romance and life of the pre- historic people who were here before the white man, and showed them the many stone implements, which they can find, and will now hunt for. I could have wept for pleasure when they, one by one, shook my hand and thanked me, and courtesied like beautifully brought up young people, though the boys were in rough Scout and camping outfits. Bar Harbor, July, 1926. I plan a fireproof and appro- priate structure, to properly house my maps and stone age implements in, which will be for all time both fascinating IN MEMORIAM 29 and educative for thousands who are not accustomed to visit museums of this sort, but who will linger and dream over this small classic and unique collection. In no other place anywhere will there be found SO graphic and seductive a group of maps, like mine, that add an appropriate charm. I am sure you will remember, as I do, a short poem to the exquisite and once popular "Moss rose," which "beside its own beauty nature had thrown about it a mantle of moss." I hope to live several years to perfect this little gem. Bar Harbor, Aug. II, 1926. 30 IN MEMORIAM My maps, I shall have placed horizontically, except the big wall map, now at the Spring, which will fill the end wall space. With the seven exhibition cases and my work and storage room at the end. It seems nearly what I desire. The rough stone walls and red tile roof will be attractive and fire proof. Slowly, slowly, slowly I am building up my scheme, which has encouraging comments from best authorities, and meets the present ardor for archeological research, of which the "Stone Age Period of Civilization" is taking first place, and we are in the center of it. IN MEMORIAM 31 This picture is tentative, and I am sending other copies of it to Mr. Endicott, Mr. Dorr, Bishop Lawrence and Judge Deasy, for suggestions, as they will have charge of deciding, with my approval. New York, April 8, 1927. I am sending a blue print of a sketch of what seems to me a fairly good start for my museum, made for me by the director of the plans for similar "trail side museums," in National Parks. Would that my little Museum, of which I hope to have every one proud next August, were advanced enough in my part, installing and 32 IN MEMORIAM labelling, to give me a sense of relief from worry. The only way to success, is to keep at it, and at it, and at it, and make it grow. New York, Nov. 22, 1927. For my dear mm His as q Gahhun Than an yera Coly sund it you and am assuming Envugh t with than my name assu scialic in your mind with that of nv able Your durnly