48 STATEN ISLAND INSTITUTE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES 
was too open and frank and generous and courteous, to permit him 
to assume a superior attitude in friendly conversation. His con- 
victions were deep and strong and he defended them with vigor, 
but in friendly conversation his delicacy restrained him from de- 
scending into controversy and gave him his unusual personal 
charm. 
It is no wonder that this personal charm should have won him 
such an unusual list of friends among the talented men of his time. 
Not to name them all, we may mention John Singer Sargent, Ed- 
win A. Abbey, James McNeill Whistler, and Mark Twain. Many 
an incident he has narrated of informal call and congenial conver- 
sation with these men, especially Whistler and Mark Twain, and 
he dearly loved to dwell upon his memories of them. He was 
under no illusions about his own gifts, unless it were a modest 
underestimate of his own personal charm and conversation. 
Doctor Adams held lofty ideals, but was no visionary. He was 
rather a realist who was gifted with unusual vision. In this 
respect he was admirably qualified for prosecuting his great pur- 
pose, which was to popularize the beautiful in every way possible. 
“Good taste and good judgment must ever join,” he thought, hence 
to popularize good taste was to inform and stabilize the judgment 
and was more laudable as an end than to please the eye. There- 
fore he was a connoisseur in painting, sculpture, and architecture, 
not so much because his position required it of him as that his 
heart and soul and judgment demanded it. 
And was it not a beautiful life to live, with such a purpose in 
view, such an object to work for? A life like that is in harmony 
not only with the dictates of esthetics but with philanthropy, with 
patriotism, with a preparation for the life beyond. It is the life 
of a true philosopher. And somewhere in that Great Beyond, 
where all that is mortal is laid aside, where the spirit is at liberty 
to pursue its untrammeled course, where “the Good, the True and 
the Beautiful are clearly perceived to be the attributes of God,” 
the spirit of our friend has for a short time preceded us. We shall 
meet again. 
