The Portland daily press., 1895-05-18

We climb mount upon mule
And jaded mule at thatl
Ascending our laborious path
In rusty coat and hat.
The humble swain who sees us pass
Scarce lifts to US his eyes;
Not less Observant Is the dog
That idly snaps the flies.
But swain and dog we leave behind
Winding o'er rock and ledge,
Ascending where no tree can grow,
Nor yet bush, or hedge.
The farmhouse shrinks; the view ex-
pands;
Crowned mountains far away
Across the line of Empire States
With pale fronts greet the day.
What matters how we rode mule
And jaded mule at that?
And labored upward from below
In rusty coat and hat?
The great aud glorious heights of life
Bathed in Gods true light and air,
Are never reached on eagles wings,
But through toll, and grief, and pray
The business, humbly started, pros
pered and grew. Jaded Jake was laid
among the rocks Of his native hills and
sprightly team took his place. The
farmers began to look upon Alvin Adj
ans as young man of much promise.
His name stood for precision of habit
and honorable dealing. Success and
fortune seemed waiting to crown him
when the great financial crisis of 1887
swept the country. With thousands of
others he was prostrated, and when the
storm had cleared not penny remained
of his hard-earned competence.
Times were hard, business was stag
nant. Men groaned and hurled out
maledictions against their country and
their maker. Not SO Alvin Adams. A
little wiping away of the fogs of disap-
pointment, n fresh grinding of that stout
heart, and he went quietly to work so.
lic1tinR in Boston parcels and packages
to be delivered in New York. His trust
worthy character was established, and
he had no difficulty IN finding patrons.
But the first year small trunk sufficed
for the business. A partner whom he
had taken retired after few months,
either through a want of faith in the
enterprise or its unsuitability, and Mr..
dams was his own messenger, cashier,
receipt clerk, and porter. In two years
the public in general began to appreciate
the fact that it WAS greatly convenient
to put valuab bles in reliable hands and
have them transferred from city to city
with certainty and dispatch. ands in the
same year. 1S40, the Adams Express COM
pany was organized and absorbed three
other companies, with Alvin Adams at
the head. In five years the line was
extended to Philadelphia, Baltimore,
Washington, and Alexandria. At this
time, in New York alone the business re-
quiIed force oil fifty men, forty horses,
and twenty wagons to conduct it. In
short time every part of the country,
South, West, North, and the Canadas,
had by dominant mind been linked to.
gether with chain of commerce.
What matters now we rode mule
And a jaded mule at that?
And labored upward from below
In rusty coat and hatY
Before his death, which occurred In
1876, and in the seventy-second year of
his age, the Adams Express belted the
world and the sun never set upon it's
off ces.
The business is fitting monument to
the memory of great man, but now for
the man himself. He was one of such
iron will one could not in safety cross his
purposes, yet child might lead him.
With business perspios city beyond his
fellow-mep, he walked ever wrapped in
veil of spiritual affairs. He firmly be-
lieved in spiritualism in the sense of the
return of disem bodied spirits. Daniel
Webster, although his senior by twenty
two years, was one of his nealeat friends.
After Webster's death he would sit down
and "conversen with his friends spirit
life. A photograph of Mr.. Adams. TAX
ell by a medium after his friends
death, shows Webster standing, the real
and wrath like, in the spirit, by his
side.
He also enjoyed the life friendship of
Ralph Waldo Emerson. 1t WAS Emerson
who pronounced Alvia Adams and Ann
Pratt, man md wife, and rejoiced with
them III the ensuing years in the birth
of three sons and two daughters. His
wife's brother, John Pratt, was one of
the leaders in the famous Brook Farm,
where gathered such congenial spirits as
Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ripley, Margaret
Fuller, and George W. Curtis. To John
Pratt's son, who married A. Bronson
Alcott's eldest daughter, was given the
honor of being father to the original
aunt. Louisa M. Alcott, wrote.
Out of the VAST fortune which was the
su bstantial evidence of his success Alvin
Adams built a palatial home in Boston
with rolled lawns eighteen acres broad.
He filed his mansion with a fortune in
paintings and his lawns with rarest
roses. He gave largely to scientific re-
searches, anu bu6 lllII6S dEo lunuu6raDl6
ir. which he extended sympathetic
helping hand to young men. The value
he had ever attached to the most trivial
agreement or understanding became even
more pronounced as he advanced in years
He would say to his daughter: "You
said you would be up at 6 o'clock this
morning. 1t isl You didn't feel well'
But what had Your feelings to do with
ltf You said you would be up at 81"
And his love of order was fully ex-
pressed in his merciless Judgment to
'Iames Russell Lowell. Poetry I don't
care car; for the poetry. James Russell Low
ell mas weeds in his fence.corners!"
An, well, how many of lis are blinded
ny weeds in our neighbours fence
corners tOnly in the next world may all
greatness be harmonized and all arts
mace one. But as we lay aside this brief
study of a muhan mind, let us say with
". X. Clifford, "tne ideal character,
that which is best fitted to receive the
teaching Of nature, is one which has
reason for its guides