Memoirs of Go. B-Dorr 1883-1900 Spiritualism. In the eighteen forties and fifties a good deal of interest was taken in Boston and elsehwere in the phenomena of spiritualism, as they were alleged to be. Whatever their cause might be, the phenomena at least seemed real; and if real, to open up new fields for study, new conceptions of existence. My father was interested, my mother too, and making trial had some experiences which it did not seem possible to explain in terms of the known facts of material existence. I knew nothing of these at the time --I was too young but they were told me later, and what my father told me I could not question; he was an excellent and cool observer. Years later I. chance throwing the opportunity in my way, experimentedmyself along the same line and equally arrived at no conclusions. A number of years after I graduated from Harvard, returning from some years abroad with a new phenomena of electricity awaken- ing my interest, I went out to the Jefferson Laboratory at Harvard where the professor of Physics in charge --Professor Trowbridge -- was an old acquaintance, and entered myself as a postgraduate student in one of his courses upon electricity. With a more mature mind than the other students in the class, I sought to understand the principles governing the phenomena and, lingering along after the others had left, I asked him certain questions which he frankly told me he could not answer, and would think them over. I said that I should have thought they were questions his students would be asking constantly and familiar to him. "No", he said, "they Spiritualism =2 work at the problems set them, read what the text book says, and leave it there. Those who want to understand the philosophy of the matter are few; two or three in the year, perhaps, at most." "But", he added. "you are working along the wrong line! You want to know the theory of what happens and hang your facts upon it, al there is no theory; all that we know as yet are facts." This is the case, also with what are temred the phenomena of spirituali all that we can hope tolearn at the present time are facts; and all we can do is to learn whether they are genuine or not. For the whole study of these phenomena is complicated by endless frand For one thing, I made up my mind that there is communication be- neath the level of our consciousness between mind and mind, not made through any sense we know nor limited apparently by establish sense conditions. Yet, and "there's the rub", it is not 80 simple as that; one might understand one mind's acting on another, trans- mitting a name or thought; there are plenty of instances of that. But there are cases that seem beyond question where active, creative intelligence comes between and the thought taken from one person is dramatized, and not simply echoed, in coming from the other. What is that intermediate intelligence and how does it work? When we ask ourselves this, we have to recognize that we know literally nothing of consciousness in itself, neither where it is seated nor how it operates. It is one of the ultimates of existen Spiritualism -3 which there seems as yet no chance of reaching, It is one of Professor Trowbridge's "facts" and which we cannot even formulate a theory for it to hang upon. They are trying experiments now at Duke University on this very subject of thought transmission and have published within a few months results that so far as they have gone seem to postulate communication not limited by the time conditions of known electrical phenomena --which make light the ultimate of speed. Communication between di istant points seems to be instantaneous and if it be our physicial science kn owB no medium or agency through which such communication can take place. They are continuing with the investi- gation and if, as they believe, they can establish the facts it seems to make necessary the recognition of energies and forces, hidden from ordinary observation, but constantly in operation none the less, which followed further, may work a revolution in our conceptions of the universe. Another complication of these old phenomena of my father's time is that they relate not only to thought communication but seem to have been associated with physical movements, and move- ments directed apparently by some extraneous intelligence that can receive ideas and act on the matter. I remember one summer when we were in the Engadine in Switzer- land spending the summer, that I sat at table d'hote next my father's and mother's friend Mr. Benjamin F. Rotch of Boston, a man of unusual intelligence. He told me, speaking of the phenomena of that time, whiddhihe, too, had been interested in, that one time Spiritualism -4 when a famous medium a man, was in Boston, he and a small group of his personal friends, genteemen who all knew each other well, met at his house in Boston together with this medium, no one else being present nor any possibility of a confederate; that the medium brought with him certain of the paraphernalia of the medium's trade - a large hand-bell, like a school bell, with a stout handle to it, and that this went flying about the room, while a heavy mahogany dining table in the room was drawn apart where the leaves were inserted to enlarge it on occasion, and this bell in its gyrations thrust itself up, the handle rising through the space the table was drawn apart, just wide enough to admit it, and that he grapsed it firmly in his hand, resting his fist upon the table either side, and said to the medium, "Now if your spirits will take that away from me, I'll believe there is something in it." The medium replied that he did not know whether he could get this done but he would ask the controls and see. Mr. Rotch tole me that in a moment or two he felt a tiny pull upon the bell which made him laugh and ask if that were all that they could do, but he said the pull increased and increased till finally it drew the handle of the bell out of his grasp, supported by the table as it was, not as if some one were jerking it away but as though some great machine was quietly but irrestiatably pulling it from his grasp. If Mr. Rotch had been a man of impressionable character, and if no others had been present, or a confederate had been there, one might look for some normal explanation of what took place, but iritialis -5 he was not in the least of an emotional character and his experi- ence does not stand alone. Others have had a like, nor is any explanation offered. Frecall his commenting upon it to me and saying that he was then, in the prime of his younger life, unusually muscular and strong; no man could have drawn that bell away from him without a jerk, a sudden pull, but the force that withdrew it from his hand was like that of some great machine. I have known of other instances in which heavy mahogany dining tables were moved about in private homes when a small group of friends, no medium being present, joined their fingertips above it. The hands of all present being visible and the table moving in response to suggestions given by the people present. It all seems utterly meaningless but if there be truth at all anywhere it means that there are fordes at work, and forces not wholly dis-assoo iated from intelligence, which if we can learn more about them and bring them under the range of observation may alter our whole conception of the universe. Dorr's history One of the things that happened in that first period of my father's and mother's interest in the subject was when they went on to New York to stay and dined out the first evening they were there where these matters were spoken of at table and an address given of a medium, a man named Foster, if I remember right, whom they said was remarkable. My father took down the name and the address and thought no more of it, but the following day he and my mother and a friend of my mother's who had come on with them, Spiritualism -6 were walking through the street when it suddenly occured to my father that they were passing the address he had written down the night before, and he suggested that they gotin and see if he were there and would give them a sitting, which they did. The man was there and some remarkable things took place. He did not go into a trance but seemed to pass into a state not wholly normal in which he carried on communications, according to his talk, with personalities and presences in another world. He asked my father to write down on a blank sheet of paper questions my father would like to ask and give him the paper, not letting him see what was written. This my father did folding the paper as he wrote and taking it where by no possibility could the medium read as he wrote, and folding the paper down as he wrote each question, to oover it from view. When he had asked his questions he took the folded paper and twisted it and tossed it over to the medium who took it up and held it in his hand and began to talk, answer- ing the questions categorically as my father had written them. What the questions were I do not remember but this I recall; that one of my uncles on my father's side, a half-brother of an older group, had recently died at our home in the country, my father caring for him to the end. Of him, as though present, my father asked one of the qestions he had written down, and when he came to this question the medium began to t alk not as though talking himself--he was an illiterate man of common speech - but as my uncle, who was a noted scholar of a time when long-syllabled words and Johnsonian phrases were the custom among scholars, and Spiritualism =7 which my father said he could by no possibility imagine the medium could have used even if he had known my uncle. But a more cirious thing than this happened. The friend who had come on with my mother and father from Boston had been living abroad for years and while she was there she had become engaged to a Englishman. The engagement was never announced and my mother who knew her intimately had no knowledge of it. The man had died; the incident was closed. But at this seance the medium insisted that there was some one there, a man, whowished to sent a message. It me ant nothing to my father and mother and my mother's friend, if she realized what was coming, must have endeavored to avoid it, if avoidance were possible, but the medium, controlled as it were by this presence on the other side insisted and the name and the facts came out, much to the embarrass- ment of my mother's friend. What was said beyond the name and the fact of presence I do not recall, or if it were told me, but in some way the past which had meant 80 much to my mother's friend surged up and presented itself dramatically before her and before my mother and my father who had no knowledge whatever of it and from who se minds it could not in any way have come. Nor could the medium have had any knowledge of my mother's friend, for she and my father and mother had only come to the City the evening before and their coming in to see the medium was the merest chance, yet somehow the fact came out and came out dramatized as though the man she had loved was present. Another time, earlier than this, my, mother when she was living at Jamaica Plain, and I was but 8 young child, too young to be told of it at the time, went at see a medium she had heard of, hoping possibly to get some word if there were truth in it, of a brother who had lately died abroad and her hole thought in going was centered upon this, but a seeming personality in- truded itself in the talk of the medium on going into a trance, much to my mother's vexation who did her best to force it, - the personality that intruded on the trance - aside. But this person- ality - one doesn't know what name to give it other - insisted with reiteration that he had done my father a wrong in a business transaction connected with a bank and wished to tell him of his deep regret. My mother telling my father of this on her return home said "I might have thought it was so and so (referring to a matter of which she knew in part ) but that he said it related to a bank and that affair had no connection with a bank." My father replied, "It all turned upon a bank; it was a bank transaction", and he was much impressed. The result of all which is that "there are more things in heaven and earth's lie Pition than thou has dreamt of in thy philosophy." Use medium 1860 Dictaphone - January 26, 1940. It was the wonderful beauty of the flowers that grew so naturally and simply in my mother's garden by the sea at Oldfarm that, more than aught else, led me on along the way, step by step and all unconscious of the greater goal to which it was to lead me, to the founding of Acadia National Park. I loved the flowers for their own beauty's sake, but when later I learned how they had grown in a great northern belt the world around before man took note of them, but only the birds and insects that fed upon and cross-fertilized them, I became interested in experimenting with them and natural- izing them out along the wild garden lines then rife in England, and found, though they might come from the great grassy plains of Northern Asia, they held their own like natives, given but the sunlight and the SOIL may needed. And presently I started a nursery to grow them on some of the old, admirably suited farm lands that we had in our Oldfarm property, so that all might have them at a price. Thus it was that the Mount Desert Nurseries had their origin. 5, 1894; ProQuest Historical Newspapers Boston TABLE GOSSIP. TABLE GOSSIP. TABLE GOSSIP. TABLE GOSSIP. -Hon Darwin E. Ware was the guest C. J. Morrill and his daughter Miss Charlotte Hunnewell, who is All sorts of names are being su ver Sunday of Mrs Grace A. Oliver at of Arlington st and Miss Minot were the leading Boston society belle at New- gested for the daughter born to Mr al larblehead, where Mrs Ware has been among the guests At Mrs Alexander port, wore at the Monday night Casino Mrs Guy Norman, the first child bo isiting the past fortnight. Mr and Mis Maitland's acception the other day at hop n gown of primrose silk, with plush among the hunting set at the Myop Varo went this week to Chocorua, H, her pleasant summer home in Albare satin ribbon and white lace. kennels on their summer stampli or August, thendow, Bar Harbor, in honor of Dr -Mrs Ollyer Ames is at Poland ground, which would be appropriate Carl Zerrahn, who Is enjoying McCcsh, ex president of Princeton col- Springs. She arrived there Thursday the honor she has thus all unconsclou he Wagner performances at Bayreuth, lege, and Mrs McCosh, Mrs Maitland's from North Easton. ly conferred. The Normans have o eports himself in most excellent health parents. Mayor Frederick O. Prince has of the prettiest cottages there, and a nd spirits. He leaves for New York G. Thayer, Mrs Thayer and arrival at the Revere, Narragansett quite the leaders in the younger me rom Bremen Aug 7, and will return at children of Groton are in London. Pler, with his family. They are plens- ried set, as the George von L Meyc nco to his work for the fall and winter Oliver Iselin (Hope Goddard), antly situated on an entire floor in the are among the older. The Lithgow De 11th his accustomed enthusiasm. He who is at Cowes for the yachting sea- new Rose cottage on Rodman st. enses, who were abroad, I believe, la onducts a musical festival at Newport, son with her husband, is receiving much -Announcement was made at New- year, are at the Kennels this summin H, immediately nfter arriving in New attention and admiration. They will port Tuesday of the engagement of Miss and their two sweet-faced daught York, and has many Important engage- meet Mr and Mrs William Goddard at Susie Whittler and Prince Beltozelski are the oldest girls, if I mistake n nents to fulfill during the autumn Menton in August, and roturn to New of Russia. Miss Whittler is the daugh- among the children of the cottage c months. York in September to spend the fall ter of Gen C. A. Whittler. Miss Whit- ony, which is entirely made up of you family of Mr Frank Converse months at Newport. tior has no fortune, but she Is voted a married people and bachelors. if Dorchester are spending the summer C. A. Ellis of the Music hall very handsome and clever girl, and has J. B. Osborn of Newbury it Royalston, Mass. Mr Converse is management is at Poland Springs for won much admiration atNewport. Prince and Miss Alico Ward have gone to with them reveral days every week. most of the month. Beltozelski is enormously rich and of from Paris. They will return home li Bullivan Sargent sang last week C. T. Howard, who went over extremely aristocratio family, his father in September. .t the historic Hunter house in Newport to Europe to visit his wife and step- being n chamberlain to the ezar. and Mrs Micah Dyer are or a local charity. The affair was un- daughter, Miss Gretchen Welch, has re- Mrs C. W. Kennard and family of tertaining at tho Appledore Prof Bow ler the smartest patronage. turned home. His family will stay over Brookline aro at Marion. of the Boston university and A Herbert Leeds was the winner until the autumn. company which gathered about Bowne. n the interesting game of golf played heirs of the late C. H. Dorr of I the hospitable board of William Minot -Providence, R I, is gaining n rej by him and Mr Sargent on the Essex Commonwea av are paying the high- Jr at Indian neck, Wareham, on Wed- tation through her daughters for n county club links last Thursday. est nonresident tax Bar Harbor, $1497. nesday afternoon was n jolly company lionnire marriages, and "Jimmy" Sc King has come on from Wash. Mrs Dorr and her son, Mr George Dorr, of the good spirits who aro wedded to of Philadelphia, whose engagement ngton to join his flancee, Miss Ellen are occupying their villa this summer. the shores of Buzzards Day, and who Miss Helen Taft of the former city Dexter, and the party at Duxbury, The former is very feeble, and goes out are particularly Interested in fishing and just announced, is treading the Ba where they aro spending August The but little, even to drive. the preservation of the fish. The Old path on which "Ollie" Isclin of N marriage will take place in October at -Miss Charlotte Hunnewell was one Colony club numbers over 100 members, York preceded him. There is somethi Miss Dexter's house on Marlboro st. of Mr Van Alen's guests in his coach a fair representation of the most Influ- evidently in the summer atmosphere wedding of Miss Schlesinger for the smart picnio Mr Van Alen and ential of which was present that day at the waters and rocks of Narragans and Mr Perrin at Brookline Tuesday Mr Ogden Mills gave at an old farm out the annunl meeting. The speech which bay which plays hayoo even with ha afternoon was conducted with a refined of Newport last Saturday afternoon. tho club's president, Joseph Jefferson, ened hearts and imbucs the most P and elegant simplicity, quito in keeping Mr and Mrs Prescott Lawrence were on made was of that order which put them sale of men with tender sentiment. with the tastes and life of the Schio- Mr Mills' conch. Mr T. F. Cushing and all in good nature, and a very enjoyable and Mrs G. P. Field and M singer family. The simple Unitarian his daughter were of the party, which afternoon was the result. Field are in Paris. ceremony, which Rev Dr Hale conduct- was made up of the new "one hundred." Georgo L. Osgood. who is at -Mr W. D. Howells, whose si ed, was witnessed only by the relativos Norcross of Commonwealth Poland Springs, is an enthusiastic devo- abroad was cut short by the Illness and intimate friends. The bride and av is entertaining Miss Chapman of MII- teo to Izaak Walton, and spends much his father, will be at Magnolia for A groom, with no best man, maid of waukee nt the Louisburg, Bar Harbor. of his time at the lake. ust. His daughter remained in Euro honor or bridesmaids, stood by the long Mrs E. B. Moore and Miss I. T. Moore Gov Russell and his little son with Mr Clemens (Mark Twain) open window at one end of the large of Brookline are recent arrivals at Ly- Eustis may be seen frequently enjoying Mrs Clemens, who are old friends of dining room in a recess made cool and man's. a spin through the avenues at Magnolia Howells, green with ferns and plants. Miss Kentucky brake cart" is one of on bicycles. Fanny Greene of Beacon Schlesinger was a gracious, beaming the newest and smartest vehicles for is being talked about In Lenox. salled Wednesday from New York presence In her white satin and priceless country roads, Among those Interested in forming a the Waesland for Europe. old lace. It was singularly becoming to H. Mason Perkins, who has re- club are Mr Hamilton Kuhn of Boston, -Count Zichy's rig attracted ul her brilliant coloring, shining eyes and cently returned to Boston, to be asso- Dr Richard C. Greenloaf of the samo sual attention on Bellevue av In Ne dark hair. A large reception took place olated with Dr Cushing Webber, after city, Mr Joo Burden of Troy, Mr Rich- port Wednesday afternoon. He dr o'clock, when the extensive grounds 21 years' residence in China and Japan, ard C. Dixey and George H. Morgan. It four horses to a mall phacton. Noth were a beautiful sight, with the multi- hns had a very hearty welcome from is not expected that links will be laid of the kind has been seen there bet tude of smartly-dressed people moving his host of old friends in town. Dr out until the Stokeses return from the this season. about amid the trees and on the broad Perkins' wife, who was a Miss Coo of Adirondacks. C. A. Whittler, whose n lawn, while the inviting plazzas were Newton, has been with him during his T. F. Cushing, that ultra New- honors make him Pres Whittier as w occupied also. Mr and Mrs Perrin, who long absence. Their daughter returned port swell, is joining the bicycle ranks. has been at Bar Harbor. He was at left the same day for an extended jour- with them, but their son Is at Leipsio He is practising daily. Mr Oliver Bel- Kebo Valley dance Saturday night. I make Brookline their home. studying plano music, for which he has mont wears on his wheel n green jacket Whitter and her daughters are abro R M. Cushing represents Bos- a decided talent. Dr Perkins and his and knickerbockers, with stockings to Samuel W. Rodman and M ton among the smart patronesses for the family are at the Littlo Anawan, match, a soft gray hat and russet shoes. Rodman of Nahant are at the Oce Casino subscription ball at Newport the Swampscott, for August. -Mr Paul Butler of Lowell is at the house, Newport, for a short visit. last of the month. Mrs Nathaniel Thayer Max Agassiz, who has been at Wentworth, Newcastle. -Mr James Jackson salled Wedn held the same office last summer. the Kennels at Hamilton during the -Mrs Ole Bull Is at Kittery. day for Europe on the Britannic, --Rev Percy Browne of Roxbury has month of July, went the last of the -Rev and Mrs James Do Normandie The Intert bathing suit, worn b: returned from Europe. month to be with his father at New- of Roxbury are spending a few days at Baltimore belle at the Pier, la a mo Max Bachert came over from port. the Shoals. They are old and warm one, and is a pleasant Innovation fr New York to spend last Sunday with his Walter Damrosch was the friends of Mrs Cella Thaxter. the usual dark blue and black flan wife and her guests at the Devereux guest of Miss Furniss Monday after- -Mr and Mrs Lowell Pratt are at Bults which scom to predominate at farm, Marblehead Neck. He drove them noon, at Lenox. She gave him a din- Franconin. seaside resorts. Miss Leo's suit is ra over to Chebacco lake for dinner Sun- ner party that evening, at which Mr A dainty luncheon was given at er a chic creation. It is of scarlet ser day night. George G. Haven, Dr and Mrs Green- the Lincoln house, Swampscott, last with n very broad sallor collar Hugh O'Brien and Miss Made- leaf and a few other cottagers were Wednesday afternoon by Mrs James striped vest, which is hemmed W line O'Brien went the first of the month present. Mr Damrosch has been the Tucker of Boston. The guests wore white silk. The skirt is very full to the Preston, Swampscott, for the rest guest of Mr Haven for a few days. Ho Mrs S. C. Pomeroy of Washington, D does not reach quite to the knees. of the season. took the late train for Boston Tuesday C: Mrs Hugh McKittrick of St Louis, and Mrs G. W. Wales of B T. K. Lothrop's yaoht Tom night. Mo; Mrs J. C. Whitin of Whitinsville, con st entertained the members of Roy, from Beverly Farms, was at Bar Francis Ware and family of Mrs H. A. Royce and Mrs C. H. Allen Town and Country clubs, of which Harbor last Sunday, with Mr Lothrop Trull st, Dorchester, are spending Au- of Boston. Julia Ward Howe is president, at th and party. gust at York Harbor. -Miss Ada Hancock, the daughter cottage on Yznaga av. Newport, I string of 18 fine horses arrived -Lieut Gov Wolcott and family are of Mrs Ellerton Dorr and granddaugh- Friday afternoon. Prof Cross of the Thursday in Newport for Dr W. Seward at North East Harbor for the month ter of Gen Winfield Scott Hancock, is stitute of Technology spoke on "The Webb, who, with his wife, is to be en- from Milton. visiting her aunt, Mrs Isone Lawrence, termination and History of Must tertained by several of the cottagers -Miss Tappan of Beacon st is vis- at her cottage at Harbor. Pitch." during August. Dr Webb has hired a iting her sister, Mrs R. C. Dixey, at rence is one of the most enthuslastic R. C. Winthrop Jr's new p big stable. Lenox. of women cyclists. But she believes in chase of the estate formerly owned cable dispatch from London an- E. P. Tileston and Miss riding in comfort If one rides nt all, so West Manchester by Mr C. A. Pri nounced the marriage of Mrs Elsa Tileston of Milton are at Rye beach for the has sent to Paris for a bicycle will Insure the completion of what Cushing and Mr D. J. Russell Duncan August. suit such as the Parisian women wear. be one of the finest country places as taking place Saturday, July 28, at St E. D. Jordan Jr, who has been It will consist of trousers and long coat, the fashionable North shore. Mr W Columbia's (church of Scotland), Pont doing Newport for a week with a with a natty collar and tie and sallor throp's enlarged and improved to st, Belgravia. Mrs Louise Chandler party of friends, left there at 11 o'clock hat. Every one who Is in the seoret is house on Walnut st will be also a V Moulton and Mr and Mrs Henry M. Sunday last for Boston on their coach. looking forward for its arrival. fine mansion. Rogers, with other Boston and New The party stopped at the Parker house, entertainment consisting of ar- Montgomery Sears is giving tistically correct tabicaux of Bondicen, series of Failing paities at Bar 11at (February 12, 1940) 4. With President Eliot, then at the beginning of his long career at Harvard, came besides Parkman the Presi- dents two sons, the elder of whom, Charles Eliot, full of public spirit, was making himself what promised to be a great career in his chosen profession of landscape art when, still young, he died. And it was in memory of him who had conceived and brought about The Trustees of Public Reservations for the State of Massachusetts that President Eliot proposed, ten years after his son's death, a similar organization for Mount Desert Island, widened afterward to Hancock County. And this in turn in which I had taken active interest brought us our first gift, the Bowl and Beehive at the southern end of what was then known as Newport Mountain, now Champlain, given us by Mrs. Charles D. Homans of Boston in memory of her son. And it was this gift, as I have elsewhere told, that made with me a starting point for gathering the land that presently, seizing the opportunity created by an attack in the Maine State Legislature, I made the foundation for Acadia National Park. That Mrs. Homans came to Bar Harbor and purchased the land she built her home upon and with it the land she gave the Park was due to her brother's coming earlier with my father at the time my father purchased Oldfarm, and it was there that President Eliot came to tell me of Mrs. Homans' gift. It all ties up together wonderfully, even to the success in-gathering lands for placing in pa.5 my The Mount Desert Nurseries The Mount Desert Nurseries were founded in 1896, 1896 the direct outcome of the first pleasure garden on Mount Desert Island, that of Oldfarm. The Oldfarm garden in turn was the outcome of earlier gardens in Massachusetts which went back in long succession to Colonial times. The Nurseries had in these a dis- tinguished ancestry. When the Mount Desert Nurseries were started, conditions at Bar Harbor and elsewhere on Mount Desert Island were far different from the present. The simple fishermen's huts and farmhouses, collected around each sheltering harbor when the sea was the only highway, had grown, as the stream of visitors increased, into big hotels; while summer residences, simple or costly, were springing up on every available site along the shore. Flowers were in demand to make the bare hotel rooms beautiful and gardens around the new summer homes were everywhere in the making. It was a transitory condition but it was based upon a real and permanent an human need and opportunity for gardening which trial and experience had shown to be extraordinary. 2. The time was one of great activity along horti- cultural lines. The flower shows of the Boston Horticultural Society were famous, the Arnold Arboretum, making trial of woody plants and spending great sums on expeditions for the collection of new species and varieties, was at the .zenith of its fame and books by the score came from the press, telling of the plants in cultivation and their wild congeners. Most inspiring of all, the weekly publication, Garden and Forest, edited by leaders. in American horticulture, was telling constantly of others 1 experience with plants, their experiments and obser- - vations. As yet the automobile had not come along to take men far afield in summer and they were content to stay at home and cultivate their gardens. It was. the end of a great period, the beginning of another not yet come into its own. But whatever changes come, the need to make beautiful the homes of men is fundamental and abiding. [G.BDOWR] "Among the manifold creatures of God that have in all ages diversly entertained many excellent wits and drawn them to the contem- plation of the divine wisdom, none have provoked men's studies more or satisfied their desires so much as plants have done." Gerard's Herball, 1597. * The Mount Desert Nurseries, founded in 1896, sprang directly from my mother's Oldfarm garden, the first pleasure garden on Mount Desert Island, which had in turn a long and honorable descent from early Salem and Medford gardens. going back to the colonial period. My earliest recollections are concerned with gardens, our own and my grand- mother's, long before we ever came to Mount Desert. The whole country around Boston has been famous always for its gardens and for the fruit raised in them. So, as soon as our Oldfarm home was built, my mother set to work to make a garden, bringing to it hardy flowering shrubs and plants from our earlier country home near Boston. The garden flourished amazingly, the plants growing with a vigor and blooming with a beauty unknown in our experience. With its cool nights and long days of radiant Version 2. 2. sunshine tempered by the sea, Mount Desert Island proved a wonderful home for the hardy herbaceous plants and flowering shrubs which make the beauty of a northern garden, while, unlike gardens in more southern climates, plant succeeding plant in bloom the summer through leaves no time when its gardens may not be fresh and beautiful with no dull season intervening. The Eighties and Nineties of the Nineteenth century were a great period in horticulture, in England and America alike; much was published on the subject and I grew greatly interested, with the result that, wishing to bring the beauty that lay so readily within the reach of all along our eastern coast more widely into people!s lives and homes, I founded the Mount Desert Nurseries, placing them on what had been the pastureland and cultivated ground of an early farm upon which we had built our summer home. In spite of difficulties created by the changing conditions of the time, they have done good service to the cause of horticulture and they may do a greater yet, continued through the future. [G.B.DoRR] O Cyl No 1, page 2 It all shows us the true advance of Science into realms extraordinarily complex in character, made at a time when the world, else, was so generally and so deeply plunged in barbarismj and such matters are far more difficult for the historian, so -called, to deal with but are infinitely more important in the main than the stories that they give us so g enerally of barberous wars of kings and potentates , who are only important, save tragically, to the people of their help day as they make or mar the progress of science and peaceful, useful industry. In this respect we are s till more advanced today than they were in those early, historic times, which had behind them a period of barbarism and and war between man and man, hidden from us/by the historian happily, naturally, which one shudders to contemplate when one thinks of xt the existence of it. through As electricity was unknown tp all the long ages of early source and observation until quite recent days, and as a toy alone at first, so I cannot question there are other forces in the universe than what we know of now. ! There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than thy thou knowest of in philosophy." start Cyl No 1 page 3 10 have advanced imme sasurably from the positivism of ignorance since my days at college. Cylinder No 2 --1 same date of But/the one great phenomenon, transcending all others in importance and interest, consciousness, we know absolutely nothing and do not een attempt to understand the problem of it. And we are conscious of our ignorance. We have such knowledge as an animal needs to live and nothing more. GBD: end of this section of notes which is to be copied as opportunity comes and read over to me for revision.