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THE title of this chapter might imply that
there is an unsocial side to Edison. In a
sense this is true, for no one is more impatient
or intolerant of interruption when deeply engaged
in some line of experiment. Then the caller,
no matter how important or what his mission, is
likely to realize his utter insignificance and be
sent away without accomplishing his object.
But, generally speaking, Edison is easy
tolerance itself, with a peculiar weakness
toward those who have the least right to make any
demands on his time. Man is a social animal,
and that describes Edison; but it does not
describe accurately the inventor asking to be let
alone.
Edison never sought Society; but "Society"
has never ceased to seek him, and to-day, as
ever, the pressure upon him to give up his work
and receive honors, meet distinguished people,
or attend public functions, is intense. Only
two or three years ago, a flattering invitation
came from one of the great English universities
to receive a degree, but at that moment he was
deep in experiments on his new storage battery,
and nothing could budge him. He would not drop
the work, and while highly appreciative of the
proposed honor, let it go by rather than quit
for a week or two the stern drudgery of probing
for the fact and the truth. Whether one
approves or not, it is at least admirable
stoicism, of which the world has too little. A
similar instance is that of a visit paid to the
laboratory by some one bringing a gold medal from
a foreign society. It was a very hot day in
summer, the visitor was in full social regalia
of silk hat and frock-coat, and insisted that
he could deliver the medal only into Edison's
hands. At that moment Edison, stripped pretty
nearly down to the buff, was at the very crisis
of an important experiment, and refused
absolutely to be interrupted. He had neither
sought nor expected the medal; and if the
delegate didn't care to leave it he could take
it away. At last Edison was overpersuaded,
and, all dirty and perspiring as he was,
received the medal rather than cause the visitor
to come again. On one occasion, receiving a
medal in New York, Edison forgot it on the
ferry-boat and left it behind him. A few years
ago, when Edison had received the Albert medal
of the Royal Society of Arts, one of the
present authors called at the laboratory to see
it. Nobody knew where it was; hours passed
before it could be found; and when at last the
accompanying letter was produced, it had an
office date stamp right over the signature of the
royal president. A visitor to the laboratory
with one of these medallic awards asked Edison
if he had any others. "Oh yes," he said,
"I have a couple of quarts more up at the
house!" All this sounds like lack of
appreciation, but it is anything else than
that. While in Paris, in 1889, he wore
the decoration of the Legion of Honor whenever
occasion required, but at all other times turned
the badge under his lapel "because he hated to
have fellow-Americans think he was showing
off." And any one who knows Edison will bear
testimony to his utter absence of ostentation.
It may be added that, in addition to the two
quarts of medals up at the house, there will be
found at Glenmont many other signal tokens of
esteem and good-will--a beautiful cigar-case
from the late Tsar of Russia, bronzes from the
Government of Japan, steel trophies from
Krupp, and a host of other mementos, to one of
which he thus refers: "When the experiments
with the light were going on at Menlo Park,
Sarah Bernhardt came to America. One
evening, Robert L. Cutting, of New York,
brought her out to see the light. She was a
terrific `rubberneck.' She jumped all over
the machinery, and I had one man especially to
guard her dress. She wanted to know
everything. She would speak in French, and
Cutting would translate into English. She
stayed there about an hour and a half.
Bernhardt gave me two pictures, painted by
herself, which she sent me from Paris."
Reference has already been made to the callers
upon Edison; and to give simply the names of
persons of distinction would fill many pages of
this record. Some were mere consumers of time;
others were gladly welcomed, like Lord
Kelvin, the greatest physicist of the last
century, with whom Edison was always in
friendly communication. "The first time I saw
Lord Kelvin, he came to my laboratory at
Menlo Park in 1876." (He reported most
favorably on Edison's automatic telegraph
system at the Philadelphia Exposition of
1876.) "I was then experimenting with
sending eight messages simultaneously over a wire
by means of synchronizing tuning-forks. I
would take a wire with similar apparatus at both
ends, and would throw it over on one set of
instruments, take it away, and get it back so
quickly that you would not miss it, thereby
taking advantage of the rapidity of electricity
to perform operations. On my local wire I got
it to work very nicely. When Sir William
Thomson (Kelvin) came in the room, he was
introduced to me, and had a number of friends
with him. He said: `What have you here?'
I told him briefly what it was. He then turned
around, and to my great surprise explained the
whole thing to his friends. Quite a different
exhibition was given two weeks later by another
well-known Englishman, also an electrician,
who came in with his friends, and I was trying
for two hours to explain it to him and failed."
After the introduction of the electric light,
Edison was more than ever in demand socially,
but he shunned functions like the plague, not
only because of the serious interference with
work, but because of his deafness. Some
dinners he had to attend, but a man who ate
little and heard less could derive practically no
pleasure from them. "George Washington
Childs was very anxious I should go down to
Philadelphia to dine with him. I seldom went
to dinners. He insisted I should go--that a
special car would leave New York. It was for
me to meet Mr. Joseph Chamberlain. We had
the private car of Mr. Roberts, President of
the Pennsylvania Railroad. We had one of
those celebrated dinners that only Mr. Childs
could give, and I heard speeches from Charles
Francis Adams and dif- ferent people. When
I came back to the depot, Mr. Roberts was
there, and insisted on carrying my satchel for
me. I never could understand that."
Among the more distinguished visitors of the
electric- lighting period was President Diaz,
with whom Edison became quite intimate.
"President Diaz, of Mexico, visited this
country with Mrs. Diaz, a highly educated and
beautiful woman. She spoke very good English.
They both took a deep interest in all they saw.
I don't know how it ever came about, as it is
not in my line, but I seemed to be delegated to
show them around. I took them to railroad
buildings, electric-light plants, fire
departments, and showed them a great variety of
things. It lasted two days." Of another
visit Edison says: "Sitting Bull and fifteen
Sioux Indians came to Washington to see the
Great Father, and then to New York, and
went to the Goerck Street works. We could
make some very good pyrotechnics there, so we
determined to give the Indians a scare. But it
didn't work. We had an arc there of a most
terrifying character, but they never moved a
muscle." Another episode at Goerck Street
did not find the visitors quite so stoical.
"In testing dynamos at Goerck Street we had a
long flat belt running parallel with the floor,
about four inches above it, and travelling four
thousand feet a minute. One day one of the
directors brought in three or four ladies to the
works to see the new electric-light system.
One of the ladies had a little poodle led by a
string. The belt was running so smoothly and
evenly, the poodle did not notice the difference
between it and the floor, and got into the belt
before we could do anything. The dog was
whirled around forty or fifty times, and a
little flat piece of leather came out--and the
ladies fainted."
A very interesting period, on the social side,
was the visit paid by Edison and his family to
Europe in 1889, when he had made a splendid
exhibit of his inventions and apparatus at the
great Paris Centennial Exposition of that
year, to the extreme delight of the French,
who welcomed him with open arms. The political
sentiments that the Exposition celebrated were
not such as to find general sympathy in
monarchical Europe, so that the "crowned
heads" were conspicuous by their absence. It
was not, of course, by way of theatrical
antithesis that Edison appeared in Paris at
such a time. But the contrast was none the less
striking and effective. It was felt that,
after all, that which the great exposition
exemplified at its best --the triumph of genius
over matter, over ignorance, over
superstition--met with its due recognition when
Edison came to participate, and to felicitate a
noble nation that could show so much in the
victories of civilization and the arts, despite
its long trials and its long struggle for
liberty. It is no exaggeration to say that
Edison was greeted with the enthusiastic homage
of the whole French people. They could find no
praise warm enough for the man who had
"organized the echoes" and "tamed the
lightning," and whose career was so picturesque
with eventful and romantic development. In
fact, for weeks together it seemed as though no
Parisian paper was considered complete and up to
date without an article on Edison. The
exuberant wit and fancy of the feuilletonists
seized upon his various inventions evolving from
them others of the most extraordinary nature with
which to bedazzle and bewilder the reader. At
the close of the Exposition Edison was created
a Commander of the Legion of Honor. His own
exhibit, made at a personal expense of over
$100,000, covered several thousand
square feet in the vast Machinery Hall, and
was centred around a huge Edison lamp built of
myriads of smaller lamps of the ordinary size.
The great attraction, however, was the display
of the perfected phonograph. Several
instruments were provided, and every day, all
day long, while the Exposition lasted, queues
of eager visitors from every quarter of the globe
were waiting to hear the little machine talk and
sing and reproduce their own voices. Never
before was such a collection of the languages of
the world made. It was the first linguistic
concourse since Babel times. We must let
Edison tell the story of some of his
experiences:
"At the Universal Exposition at Paris, in
1889, I made a personal exhibit covering
about an acre. As I had no intention of
offering to sell anything I was showing, and
was pushing no companies, the whole exhibition
was made for honor, and without any hope of
profit. But the Paris newspapers came around
and wanted pay for notices of it, which we
promptly refused; whereupon there was rather a
stormy time for a while, but nothing was
published about it.
"While at the Exposition I visited the
Opera-House. The President of France lent
me his private box. The Opera-House was one
of the first to be lighted by the incandescent
lamp, and the managers took great pleasure in
showing me down through the labyrinth containing
the wiring, dynamos, etc. When I came into
the box, the orchestra played the
`Star-Spangled Banner,' and all the people
in the house arose; whereupon I was very much
embarrassed. After I had been an hour at the
play, the manager came around and asked me to go
underneath the stage, as they were putting on a
ballet of 300 girls, the finest ballet in
Europe. It seems there is a little hole on the
stage with a hood over it, in which the prompter
sits when opera is given. In this instance it
was not occupied, and I was given the position
in the prompter's seat, and saw the whole
ballet at close range.
"The city of Paris gave me a dinner at the new
Hotel de Ville, which was also lighted with
the Edison system. They had a very fine
installation of machinery. As I could not
understand or speak a word of French, I went
to see our minister, Mr. Whitelaw Reid, and
got him to send a deputy to answer for me, which
he did, with my grateful thanks. Then the
telephone company gave me a dinner, and the
engineers of France; and I attended the dinner
celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the
discovery of photography. Then they sent to
Reid my decoration, and they tried to put a
sash on me, but I could not stand for that.
My wife had me wear the little red button, but
when I saw Americans coming I would slip it
out of my lapel, as I thought they would jolly
me for wearing it."
Nor was this all. Edison naturally met many of
the celebrities of France: "I visited the
Eiffel Tower at the invitation of Eiffel. We
went to the top, where there was an extension
and a small place in which was Eiffel's private
office. In this was a piano. When my wife and
I arrived at the top, we found that Gounod,
the composer, was there. We stayed a couple of
hours, and Gounod sang and played for us. We
spent a day at Meudon, an old palace given by
the government to Jansen, the astronomer. He
occupied three rooms, and there were 300.
He had the grand dining-room for his
laboratory. He showed me a gyroscope he had got
up which made the incredible number of 4000
revolutions in a second. A modification of this
was afterward used on the French Atlantic lines
for making an artificial horizon to take
observations for position at sea. In connection
with this a gentleman came to me a number of
years afterward, and I got out a part of some
plans for him. He wanted to make a gigantic
gyroscope weighing several tons, to be run by an
electric motor and put on a sailing ship. He
wanted this gyroscope to keep a platform
perfectly horizontal, no matter how rough the
sea was. Upon this platform he was going to
mount a telescope to observe an eclipse off the
Gold Coast of Africa. But for some reason it
was never completed.
"Pasteur invited me to come down to the
Institute, and I went and had quite a chat
with him. I saw a large number of persons being
inoculated, and also the whole modus operandi,
which was very interesting. I saw one beautiful
boy about ten, the son of an English lord.
His father was with him. He had been bitten in
the face, and was taking the treatment. I said
to Pasteur, `Will he live?' `No,' said
he, `the boy will be dead in six days. He was
bitten too near the top of the spinal column,
and came too late!' "
Edison has no opinion to offer as an expert on
art, but has his own standard of taste: "Of
course I visited the Louvre and saw the Old
Masters, which I could not enjoy. And I
attended the Luxembourg, with modern masters,
which I enjoyed greatly. To my mind, the Old
Masters are not art, and I suspect that many
others are of the same opinion; and that their
value is in their scarcity and in the variety of
men with lots of money." Somewhat akin to this
is a shrewd comment on one feature of the
Exposition: "I spent several days in the
Exposition at Paris. I remember going to the
exhibit of the Kimberley diamond mines, and
they kindly permitted me to take diamonds from
some of the blue earth which they were washing by
machinery to exhibit the mine operations. I
found several beautiful diamonds, but they
seemed a little light weight to me when I was
picking them out. They were diamonds for
exhibition purposes --probably glass."
This did not altogether complete the European
trip of 1889, for Edison wished to see
Helmholtz. "After leaving Paris we went to
Berlin. The French papers then came out and
attacked me because I went to Germany; and
said I was now going over to the enemy. I
visited all the things of interest in Berlin;
and then on my way home I went with Helmholtz
and Siemens in a private compartment to the
meeting of the German Association of Science
at Heidelberg, and spent two days there. When
I started from Berlin on the trip, I began to
tell American stories. Siemens was very fond
of these stories and would laugh immensely at
them, and could see the points and the humor,
by his imagination; but Helmholtz could not see
one of them. Siemens would quickly, in
German, explain the point, but Helmholtz
could not see it, although he understood
English, which Siemens could speak. Still
the explanations were made in German. I always
wished I could have understood Siemens's
explanations of the points of those stories. At
Heidelberg, my assistant, Mr. Wangemann,
an accomplished German- American, showed the
phonograph before the Association."
Then came the trip from the Continent to
England, of which this will certainly pass as a
graphic picture: "When I crossed over to
England I had heard a good deal about the
terrors of the English Channel as regards
seasickness. I had been over the ocean three
times and did not know what seasickness was, so
far as I was concerned myself. I was told that
while a man might not get seasick on the ocean,
if he met a good storm on the Channel it would
do for him. When we arrived at Calais to cross
over, everybody made for the restaurant. I did
not care about eating, and did not go to the
restaurant, but my family did. I walked out
and tried to find the boat. Going along the
dock I saw two small smokestacks sticking up,
and looking down saw a little boat. `Where is
the steamer that goes across the Channel?'
`This is the boat.' There had been a storm
in the North Sea that had carried away some of
the boats on the German steamer, and it
certainly looked awful tough outside. I said to
the man: `Will that boat live in that sea?'
`Oh yes,' he said, `but we've had a bad
storm.' So I made up my mind that perhaps I
would get sick this time. The managing director
of the English railroad owning this line was
Forbes, who heard I was coming over, and
placed the private saloon at my disposal. The
moment my family got in the room with the French
lady's maid and the rest, they commenced to get
sick, so I felt pretty sure I was in for it.
We started out of the little inlet and got into
the Channel, and that boat went in seventeen
directions simultaneously. I waited awhile to
see what was going to occur, and then went into
the smoking-compartment. Nobody was there.
By-and-by the fun began. Sounds of all kinds
and varieties were heard in every direction.
They were all sick. There must have been
100 people aboard. I didn't see a single
exception except the waiters and myself. I
asked one of the waiters concerning the boat
itself, and was taken to see the engineer, and
went down to look at the engines, and saw the
captain. But I kept mostly in the
smoking-room. I was smoking a big cigar, and
when a man looked in I would give a big puff,
and every time they saw that they would go away
and begin again. The English Channel is a
holy terror, all right, but it didn't affect
me. I must be out of balance."
While in Paris, Edison had met Sir John
Pender, the English "cable king," and had
received an invitation from him to make a visit
to his country residence: "Sir John Pender,
the master of the cable system of the world at
that time, I met in Paris. I think he must
have lived among a lot of people who were very
solemn, because I went out riding with him in
the Bois de Boulogne and started in to tell him
American stories. Although he was a Scotchman
he laughed immoderately. He had the faculty of
understanding and quickly seeing the point of the
stories; and for three days after I could not
get rid of him. Finally I made him a promise
that I would go to his country house at Foot's
Cray, near London. So I went there, and
spent two or three days telling him stories.
"While at Foot's Cray, I met some of the
backers of Ferranti, then putting up a gigantic
alternating- current dynamo near London to send
ten or fifteen thousand volts up into the main
district of the city for electric lighting. I
think Pender was interested. At any rate the
people invited to dinner were very much
interested, and they questioned me as to what I
thought of the proposition. I said I hadn't
any thought about it, and could not give any
opinion until I saw it. So I was taken up to
London to see the dynamo in course of
construction and the methods employed; and they
insisted I should give them some expression of
my views. While I gave them my opinion, it
was reluctantly; I did not want to do so. I
thought that commercially the thing was too
ambitious, that Ferranti's ideas were too
big, just then; that he ought to have started a
little smaller until he was sure. I understand
that this installation was not commercially
successful, as there were a great many
troubles. But Ferranti had good ideas, and he
was no small man."
Incidentally it may be noted here that during
the same year (1889) the various
manufacturing Edison lighting interests in
America were brought together, under the
leadership of Mr. Henry Villard, and
consolidated in the Edison General Electric
Company with a capital of no less than
$12,000,000 on an eight-
per-cent.-dividend basis. The numerous
Edison central stations all over the country
represented much more than that sum, and made a
splendid outlet for the product of the
factories. A few years later came the
consolidation with the Thomson-Houston
interests in the General Electric Company,
which under the brilliant and vigorous management
of President C. A. Coffin has become one of
the greatest manufacturing institutions of the
country, with an output of apparatus reaching
toward $75,000,000 annually. The net
result of both financial operations was,
however, to detach Edison from the special
field of invention to which he had given so many
of his most fruitful years; and to close very
definitely that chapter of his life, leaving him
free to develop other ideas and interests as set
forth in these volumes.
It might appear strange on the surface, but one
of the reasons that most influenced Edison to
regrets in connection with the "big trade" of
1889 was that it separated him from his old
friend and ally, Bergmann, who, on selling
out, saw a great future for himself in
Germany, went there, and realized it. Edison
has always had an amused admiration for
Bergmann, and his "social side" is often made
evident by his love of telling stories about
those days of struggle. Some of the stories
were told for this volume. "Bergmann came to
work for me as a boy," says Edison. "He
started in on stock-quotation printers. As he
was a rapid workman and paid no attention to the
clock, I took a fancy to him, and gave him
piece-work. He contrived so many little tools
to cheapen the work that he made lots of money.
I even helped him get up tools until it occurred
to me that this was too rapid a process of
getting rid of my money, as I hadn't the heart
to cut the price when it was originally fair.
After a year or so, Bergmann got enough money
to start a small shop in Wooster Street, New
York, and it was at this shop that the first
phonographs were made for sale. Then came the
carbon telephone transmitter, a large number of
which were made by Bergmann for the Western
Union. Finally came the electric light. A
dynamo was installed in Bergmann's shop to
permit him to test the various small devices
which he was then making for the system. He
rented power from a Jew who owned the building.
Power was supplied from a fifty-horse-power
engine to other tenants on the several floors.
Soon after the introduction of the big dynamo
machine, the landlord appeared in the shop and
insisted that Bergmann was using more power than
he was paying for, and said that lately the belt
on the engine was slipping and squealing.
Bergmann maintained that he must be mistaken.
The landlord kept going among his tenants and
finally discovered the dynamo. `Oh! Mr.
Bergmann, now I know where my power goes
to,' pointing to the dynamo. Bergmann gave
him a withering look of scorn, and said,
`Come here and I will show you.' Throwing
off the belt and disconnecting the wires, he
spun the armature around by hand. `There,'
said Bergmann, `you see it's not here that
you must look for your loss.' This satisfied
the landlord, and he started off to his other
tenants. He did not know that that machine,
when the wires were connected, could stop his
engine.
"Soon after, the business had grown so large
that E. H. Johnson and I went in as
partners, and Bergmann rented an immense
factory building at the corner of Avenue B and
East Seventeenth Street, New York, six
stories high and covering a quarter of a block.
Here were made all the small things used on the
electric-lighting system, such as sockets,
chandeliers, switches, meters, etc. In
addition, stock tickers, telephones, telephone
switchboards, and typewriters were made the
Hammond typewriters were perfected and made
there. Over 1500 men were finally
employed. This shop was very successful both
scientifically and financially. Bergmann was a
man of great executive ability and carried
economy of manufacture to the limit. Among all
the men I have had associated with me, he had
the commercial instinct most highly developed."
One need not wonder at Edison's reminiscent
remark that, "In any trade any of my `boys'
made with Bergmann he always got the best of
them, no matter what it was. One time there
was to be a convention of the managers of Edison
illuminating companies at Chicago. There were
a lot of representatives from the East, and a
private car was hired. At Jersey City a poker
game was started by one of the delegates.
Bergmann was induced to enter the game. This
was played right through to Chicago without any
sleep, but the boys didn't mind that. I had
gotten them immune to it. Bergmann had won all
the money, and when the porter came in and said
`Chicago,' Bergmann jumped up and said:
`What! Chicago! I thought it was only
Philadelphia!' "
But perhaps this further story is a better
indication of developed humor and shrewdness:
"A man by the name of Epstein had been in the
habit of buying brass chips and trimmings from
the lathes, and in some way Bergmann found out
that he had been cheated. This hurt his pride,
and he determined to get even. One day Epstein
appeared and said: `Good-morning, Mr.
Bergmann, have you any chips to-day?'
`No,' said Bergmann, `I have none.'
`That's strange, Mr. Bergmann; won't you
look?' No, he wouldn't look; he knew he had
none. Finally Epstein was so persistent that
Bergmann called an assistant and told him to go
and see if he had any chips. He returned and
said they had the largest and finest lot they
ever had. Epstein went up to several boxes
piled full of chips, and so heavy that he could
not lift even one end of a box. `Now, Mr.
Bergmann,' said Epstein, `how much for the
lot?' `Epstein,' said Bergmann, `you
have cheated me, and I will no longer sell by
the lot, but will sell only by the pound.' No
amount of argument would apparently change
Bergmann's determination to sell by the pound,
but finally Epstein got up to $250 for the
lot, and Bergmann, appearing as if disgusted,
accepted and made him count out the money. Then
he said: `Well, Epstein, good-bye, I've
got to go down to Wall Street.' Epstein and
his assistant then attempted to lift the boxes to
carry them out, but couldn't; and then
discovered that cal- culations as to quantity
had been thrown out because the boxes had all
been screwed down to the floor and mostly filled
with boards with a veneer of brass chips. He
made such a scene that he had to be removed by
the police. I met him several days afterward
and he said he had forgiven Mr. Bergmann, as
he was such a smart business man, and the scheme
was so ingenious.
"One day as a joke I filled three or four
sheets of foolscap paper with a jumble of figures
and told Bergmann they were calculations showing
the great loss of power from blowing the factory
whistle. Bergmann thought it real, and never
after that would he permit the whistle to
blow."
Another glimpse of the "social side" is
afforded in the following little series of
pen-pictures of the same place and time: "I
had my laboratory at the top of the Bergmann
works, after moving from Menlo Park. The
building was six stories high. My father came
there when he was eighty years of age. The old
man had powerful lungs. In fact, when I was
examined by the Mutual Life Insurance
Company, in 1873, my lung expansion was
taken by the doctor, and the old gentleman was
there at the time. He said to the doctor: `I
wish you would take my lung expansion, too.'
The doctor took it, and his surprise was very
great, as it was one of the largest on record.
I think it was five and one-half inches.
There were only three or four could beat it.
Little Bergmann hadn't much lung power. The
old man said to him, one day: `Let's run
up-stairs.' Bergmann agreed and ran up.
When they got there Bergmann was all done up,
but my father never showed a sign of it. There
was an elevator there, and each day while it was
travelling up I held the stem of my Waterbury
watch up against the column in the elevator shaft
and it finished the winding by the time I got up
the six stories." This original method of
reducing the amount of physical labor involved in
watch-winding brings to mind another instance of
shrewdness mentioned by Edison, with regard to
his newsboy days. Being asked whether he did
not get imposed upon with bad bank-bills, he
replied that he subscribed to a bank-note
detector and consulted it closely whenever a note
of any size fell into his hands. He was then
less than fourteen years old.
The conversations with Edison that elicited
these stories brought out some details as to
peril that attends experimentation. He has
confronted many a serious physical risk, and
counts himself lucky to have come through without
a scratch or scar. Four instances of personal
danger may be noted in his own language: "When
I started at Menlo, I had an electric furnace
for welding rare metals that I did not know
about very clearly. I was in the dark-room,
where I had a lot of chloride of sulphur, a
very corrosive liquid. I did not know that it
would decompose by water. I poured in a
beakerful of water, and the whole thing exploded
and threw a lot of it into my eyes. I ran to
the hydrant, leaned over backward, opened my
eyes, and ran the hydrant water right into
them. But it was two weeks before I could
see.
"The next time we just saved ourselves. I was
making some stuff to squirt into filaments for
the incandescent lamp. I made about a pound of
it. I had used ammonia and bromine. I did not
know it at the time, but I had made bromide of
nitrogen. I put the large bulk of it in three
filters, and after it had been washed and all
the water had come through the filter, I opened
the three filters and laid them on a hot steam
plate to dry with the stuff. While I and Mr.
Sadler, one of my assistants, were working
near it, there was a sudden flash of light, and
a very smart explosion. I said to Sadler:
`What is that?' `I don't know,' he
said, and we paid no attention. In about half
a minute there was a sharp concussion, and
Sadler said: `See, it is that stuff on the
steam plate.' I grabbed the whole thing and
threw it in the sink, and poured water on it.
I saved a little of it and found it was a
terrific explosive. The reason why those little
preliminary explosions took place was that a
little had spattered out on the edge of the
filter paper, and had dried first and exploded.
Had the main body exploded there would have been
nothing left of the laboratory I was working
in.
"At another time, I had a briquetting machine
for briquetting iron ore. I had a lever held
down by a powerful spring, and a rod one inch in
diameter and four feet long. While I was
experimenting with it, and standing beside it,
a washer broke, and that spring threw the rod
right up to the ceiling with a blast; and it
came down again just within an inch of my nose,
and went clear through a two-inch plank. That
was `within an inch of your life,' as they
say.
"In my experimental plant for concentrating
iron ore in the northern part of New Jersey,
we had a verti- cal drier, a column about nine
feet square and eighty feet high. At the bottom
there was a space where two men could go through
a hole; and then all the rest of the column was
filled with baffle plates. One day this drier
got blocked, and the ore would not run down.
So I and the vice-president of the company,
Mr. Mallory, crowded through the manhole to
see why the ore would not come down. After we
got in, the ore did come down and there were
fourteen tons of it above us. The men outside
knew we were in there, and they had a great time
digging us out and getting air to us."
Such incidents brought out in narration the fact
that many of the men working with him had been
less fortunate, particularly those who had
experimented with the Roentgen X-ray, whose
ravages, like those of leprosy, were
responsible for the mutilation and death of at
least one expert assistant. In the early days
of work on the incandescent lamp, also, there
was considerable trouble with mercury. "I had
a series of vacuum-pumps worked by mercury and
used for exhausting experimental incandescent
lamps. The main pipe, which was full of
mercury, was about seven and one-half feet from
the floor. Along the length of the pipe were
outlets to which thick rubber tubing was
connected, each tube to a pump. One day,
while experimenting with the mercury pump, my
assistant, an awkward country lad from a farm on
Staten Island, who had adenoids in his nose
and breathed through his mouth, which was always
wide open, was looking up at this pipe, at a
small leak of mercury, when the rubber tube came
off and probably two pounds of mercury went into
his mouth and down his throat, and got through
his system somehow. In a short time he became
salivated, and his teeth got loose. He went
home, and shortly his mother appeared at the
laboratory with a horsewhip, which she proposed
to use on the proprietor. I was fortunately
absent, and she was mollified somehow by my
other assistants. I had given the boy
considerable iodide of potassium to prevent
salivation, but it did no good in this case.
"When the first lamp-works were started at
Menlo Park, one of my experiments seemed to
show that hot mercury gave a better vacuum in the
lamp than cold mercury. I thereupon started to
heat it. Soon all the men got salivated, and
things looked serious; but I found that in the
mirror factories, where mercury was used
extensively, the French Government made the
giving of iodide of potassium compulsory to
prevent salivation. I carried out this idea,
and made every man take a dose every day, but
there was great opposition, and hot mercury was
finally abandoned."
It will have been gathered that Edison has owed
his special immunity from "occupational
diseases" not only to luck but to unusual powers
of endurance, and a strong physique,
inherited, no doubt, from his father. Mr.
Mallory mentions a little fact that bears on
this exceptional quality of bodily powers. "I
have often been surprised at Edison's wonderful
capacity for the instant visual perception of
differences in materials that were invisible to
others until he would patiently point them out.
This had puzzled me for years, but one day I
was unexpectedly let into part of the secret.
For some little time past Mr. Edison had
noticed that he was bothered somewhat in reading
print, and I asked him to have an oculist give
him reading-glasses. He partially promised,
but never took time to attend to it. One day he
and I were in the city, and as Mrs. Edison
had spoken to me about it, and as we happened to
have an hour to spare, I persuaded him to go to
an oculist with me. Using no names, I asked
the latter to examine the gentleman's eyes. He
did so very conscientiously, and it was an
interesting experience, for he was kept busy
answering Mr. Edison's numerous questions.
When the oculist finished, he turned to me and
said: "I have been many years in the
business, but have never seen an optic nerve
like that of this gentleman. An ordinary optic
nerve is about the thickness of a thread, but
his is like a cord. He must be a remarkable man
in some walk of life. Who is he?"
It has certainly required great bodily vigor and
physical capacity to sustain such fatigue as
Edison has all his life imposed upon himself,
to the extent on one occasion of going five days
without sleep. In a conversation during
1909, he remarked, as though it were
nothing out of the way, that up to seven years
previously his average of daily working hours was
nineteen and one-half, but that since then he
figured it at eighteen. He said he stood it
easily, because he was interested in
everything, and was reading and studying all the
time. For instance, he had gone to bed the
night before exactly at twelve and had arisen at
4.30 A. M. to read some New York law
reports. It was suggested that the secret of it
might be that he did not live in the past, but
was always looking for- ward to a greater
future, to which he replied: "Yes, that's
it. I don't live with the past; I am living
for to-day and to-morrow. I am interested in
every department of science, arts, and
manufacture. I read all the time on astronomy,
chemistry, biology, physics, music,
metaphysics, mechanics, and other branches--
political economy, electricity, and, in fact,
all things that are making for progress in the
world. I get all the proceedings of the
scientific societies, the principal scientific
and trade journals, and read them. I also read
The Clipper, The Police Gazette, The
Billboard, The Dramatic Mirror, and a lot
of similar publications, for I like to know
what is going on. In this way I keep up to
date, and live in a great moving world of my
own, and, what's more, I enjoy every minute
of it." Referring to some event of the past,
he said: "Spilt milk doesn't interest me. I
have spilt lots of it, and while I have always
felt it for a few days, it is quickly
forgotten, and I turn again to the future."
During another talk on kindred affairs it was
suggested to Edison that, as he had worked so
hard all his life, it was about time for him to
think somewhat of the pleasures of travel and the
social side of life. To which he replied
laughingly: "I already have a schedule worked
out. From now until I am seventy-five years
of age, I expect to keep more or less busy with
my regular work, not, however, working as many
hours or as hard as I have in the past. At
seventy five I expect to wear loud waistcoats
with fancy buttons; also gaiter tops; at eighty
I expect to learn how to play bridge whist and
talk foolishly to the ladies. At eighty-five
I expect to wear a full-dress suit every
evening at dinner, and at ninety--well, I
never plan more than thirty years ahead."
The reference to clothes is interesting, as it
is one of the few subjects in which Edison has
no interest. It rather bores him. His dress
is always of the plainest; in fact, so plain
that, at the Bergmann shops in New York, the
children attending a parochial Catholic school
were wont to salute him with the finger to the
head, every time he went by. Upon inquiring,
he found that they took him for a priest, with
his dark garb, smooth-shaven face, and serious
expression. Edison says: "I get a suit that
fits me; then I compel the tailors to use that
as a jig or pattern or blue-print to make others
by. For many years a suit was used as a
measurement; once or twice they took fresh
measurements, but these didn't fit and they had
to go back. I eat to keep my weight constant,
hence I need never change measurements." In
regard to this, Mr. Mallory furnishes a bit
of chat as follows: "In a lawsuit in which I
was a witness, I went out to lunch with the
lawyers on both sides, and the lawyer who had
been cross-examining me stated that he had for a
client a Fifth Avenue tailor, who had told him
that he had made all of Mr. Edison's clothes
for the last twenty years, and that he had never
seen him. He said that some twenty years ago a
suit was sent to him from Orange, and
measurements were made from it, and that every
suit since had been made from these
measurements. I may add, from my own personal
observation, that in Mr. Edison's clothes
there is no evidence but that every new suit that
he has worn in that time looks as if he had been
specially measured for it, which shows how very
little he has changed physically in the last
twenty years."
Edison has never had any taste for amusements,
although he will indulge in the game of
"Parchesi" and has a billiard-table in his
house. The coming of the automobile was a great
boon to him, because it gave him a form of
outdoor sport in which he could indulge in a
spirit of observation, without the guilty
feeling that he was wasting valuable time. In
his automobile he has made long tours, and with
his family has particularly indulged his taste
for botany. That he has had the usual
experience in running machines will be evidenced
by the following little story from Mr.
Mallory: "About three years ago I had a
motor-car of a make of which Mr. Edison had
already two cars; and when the car was received
I made inquiry as to whether any repair parts
were carried by any of the various garages in
Easton, Pennsylvania, near our cement works.
I learned that this particular car was the only
one in Easton. Knowing that Mr. Edison had
had an experience lasting two or three years with
this particular make of car, I determined to
ask him for information relative to repair
parts; so the next time I was at the laboratory
I told him I was unable to get any repair parts
in Easton, and that I wished to order some of
the most necessary, so that, in case of
breakdowns, I would not be compelled to lose
the use of the car for several days until the
parts came from the automobile factory. I asked
his advice as to what I should order, to which
he replied: `I don't think it will be
necessary to order an extra top.' " Since
that episode, which will probably be appreciated
by most automobilists, Edison has taken up the
electric automobile, and is now using it as well
as developing it. One of the cars equipped with
his battery is the Bailey, and Mr. Bee tells
the following story in regard to it: "One day
Colonel Bailey, of Amesbury,
Massachusetts, who was visiting the Automobile
Show in New York, came out to the laboratory
to see Mr. Edison, as the latter had
expressed a desire to talk with him on his next
visit to the metropolis. When he arrived at the
laboratory, Mr. Edison, who had been up all
night experimenting, was asleep on the cot in
the library. As a rule we never wake Mr.
Edison from sleep, but as he wanted to see
Colonel Bailey, who had to go, I felt that
an exception should be made, so I went and
tapped him on the shoulder. He awoke at once,
smiling, jumped up, was instantly himself as
usual, and advanced and greeted the visitor.
His very first question was: `Well,
Colonel, how did you come out on that
experiment?'--referring to some suggestions
he had made at their last meeting a year before.
For a minute Colonel Bailey did not recall
what was referred to; but a few words from Mr.
Edison brought it back to his remembrance, and
he reported that the results had justified Mr.
Edison's expectations."
It might be expected that Edison would have
extreme and even radical ideas on the subject of
education--and he has, as well as a perfect
readiness to express them, because he considers
that time is wasted on things that are not
essential: "What we need," he has said,
"are men capable of doing work. I wouldn't
give a penny for the ordinary college grad-
uate, except those from the institutes of
technology. Those coming up from the ranks are
a darned sight better than the others. They
aren't filled up with Latin, philosophy, and
the rest of that ninny stuff." A further
remark of his is: "What the country needs now
is the practical skilled engineer, who is
capable of doing everything. In three or four
centuries, when the country is settled, and
commercialism is diminished, there will be time
for the literary men. At present we want
engineers, industrial men, good business-like
managers, and railroad men." It is hardly to
be marvelled at that such views should elicit
warm protest, summed up in the comment: "Mr.
Edison and many like him see in reverse the
course of human progress. Invention does not
smooth the way for the practical men and make
them possible. There is always too much danger
of neglecting thoughts for things, ideas for
machinery. No theory of education that
aggravates this danger is consistent with
national well-being."
Edison is slow to discuss the great mysteries of
life, but is of reverential attitude of mind,
and ever tolerant of others' beliefs. He is
not a religious man in the sense of turning to
forms and creeds, but, as might be expected,
is inclined as an inventor and creator to argue
from the basis of "design" and thence to infer
a designer. "After years of watching the
processes of nature," he says, "I can no
more doubt the existence of an Intelligence that
is running things than I do of the existence of
myself. Take, for example, the substance
water that forms the crystals known as ice.
Now, there are hundreds of combinations that
form crystals, and every one of them, save
ice, sinks in water. Ice, I say, doesn't,
and it is rather lucky for us mortals, for if it
had done so, we would all be dead. Why?
Simply because if ice sank to the bottoms of
rivers, lakes, and oceans as fast as it froze,
those places would be frozen up and there would
be no water left. That is only one example out
of thousands that to me prove beyond the
possibility of a doubt that some vast
Intelligence is governing this and other
planets."
A few words as to the domestic and personal side
of Edison's life, to which many incidental
references have already been made in these
pages. He was married in 1873 to Miss
Mary Stillwell, who died in 1884, leaving
three children--Thomas Alva, William
Leslie, and Marion Estelle.
Mr. Edison was married again in 1886 to
Miss Mina Miller, daughter of Mr. Lewis
Miller, a distinguished pioneer inventor and
manufacturer in the field of agricultural
machinery, and equally entitled to fame as the
father of the "Chautauqua idea," and the
founder with Bishop Vincent of the original
Chautauqua, which now has so many replicas all
over the country, and which started in motion
one of the great modern educational and moral
forces in America. By this marriage there are
three children--Charles, Madeline, and
Theodore.
For over a score of years, dating from his
marriage to Miss Miller, Edison's happy and
perfect domestic life has been spent at
Glenmont, a beautiful property acquired at that
time in Llewellyn Park, on the higher slopes
of Orange Mountain, New Jersey, within easy
walking distance of the laboratory at the foot of
the hill in West Orange. As noted already,
the latter part of each winter is spent at Fort
Myers, Florida, where Edison has, on the
banks of the Calahoutchie River, a plantation
home that is in many ways a miniature copy of the
home and laboratory up North. Glenmont is a
rather elaborate and florid building in Queen
Anne English style, of brick, stone, and
wooden beams showing on the exterior, with an
abundance of gables and balconies. It is set in
an environment of woods and sweeps of lawn,
flanked by unusually large conservatories, and
always bright in summer with glowing flower
beds. It would be difficult to imagine Edison
in a stiffly formal house, and this big, cozy,
three-story, rambling mansion has an easy
freedom about it, without and within, quite in
keeping with the genius of the inventor, but
revealing at every turn traces of feminine taste
and culture. The ground floor, consisting
chiefly of broad drawing-rooms, parlors, and
dining-hall, is chiefly noteworthy for the
"den," or lounging-room, at the end of the
main axis, where the family and friends are
likely to be found in the evening hours, unless
the party has withdrawn for more intimate social
intercourse to the interesting and fascinating
private library on the floor above. The
lounging-room on the ground floor is more or
less of an Edison museum, for it is littered
with souvenirs from great people, and with
mementos of travel, all related to some event or
episode. A large cabinet contains awards,
decorations, and medals presented to Edison,
accumulating in the course of a long career,
some of which may be seen in the illustration
opposite. Near by may be noticed a bronze
replica of the Edison gold medal which was
founded in the American Institute of
Electrical Engineers, the first award of which
was made to Elihu Thomson during the present
year (1910). There are statues of
serpentine marble, gifts of the late Tsar of
Russia, whose admiration is also represented by
a gorgeous inlaid and enamelled cigar-case.
There are typical bronze vases from the Society
of Engineers of Japan, and a striking
desk-set of writing apparatus from Krupp, all
the pieces being made out of tiny but massive
guns and shells of Krupp steel. In addition to
such bric-a-brac and bibelots of all kinds are
many pictures and photographs, including the
original sketches of the reception given to
Edison in 1889 by the Paris Figaro, and a
letter from Madame Carnot, placing the
Presidential opera-box at the disposal of Mr.
and Mrs. Edison. One of the most conspicuous
features of the room is a phonograph equipment on
which the latest and best productions by the
greatest singers and musicians can always be
heard, but which Edison himself is
everlastingly experimenting with, under the
incurable delusion that this domestic retreat is
but an extension of his laboratory.
The big library--semi-boudoir--up-stairs
is also very expressive of the home life of
Edison, but again typical of his nature and
disposition, for it is difficult to overlay his
many technical books and scientific periodicals
with a sufficiently thick crust of popular
magazines or current literature to prevent their
outcropping into evidence. In like manner the
chat and conversation here, however lightly it
may begin, turns invariably to large questions
and deep problems, especially in the fields of
discovery and invention; and Edison, in an
easy-chair, will sit through the long evenings
till one or two in the morning, pulling
meditatively at his eyebrows, quoting something
he has just read pertinent to the discussion,
hearing and telling new stories with gusto,
offering all kinds of ingenious suggestions, and
without fail getting hold of pads and sheets of
paper on which to make illustrative sketches.
He is wonderfully handy with the pencil, and
will sometimes amuse himself, while chatting,
with making all kinds of fancy bits of
penmanship, twisting his signature into circles
and squares, but always writing straight
lines--so straight they could not be ruled
truer. Many a night it is a question of getting
Edison to bed, for he would much rather probe a
problem than eat or sleep; but at whatever hour
the visitor retires or gets up, he is sure to
find the master of the house on hand, serene and
reposeful, and just as brisk at dawn as when he
allowed the conversation to break up at
midnight. The ordinary routine of daily family
life is of course often interrupted by receptions
and parties, visits to the billiard-room, the
entertainment of visitors, the departure to and
return from college, at vacation periods, of
the young people, and matters relating to the
many social and philanthropic causes in which
Mrs. Edison is actively interested; but, as
a matter of fact, Edison's round of toil and
relaxation is singularly uniform and free from
agitation, and that is the way he would rather
have it.
Edison at sixty-three has a fine physique, and
being free from serious ailments of any kind,
should carry on the traditions of his long-lived
ancestors as to a vigorous old age. His hair
has whitened, but is still thick and abundant,
and though he uses glasses for certain work, his
gray-blue eyes are as keen and bright and deeply
lustrous as ever, with the direct, searching
look in them that they have ever worn. He
stands five feet nine and one-half inches high,
weighs one hundred and seventy-five pounds, and
has not varied as to weight in a quarter of a
century, although as a young man he was slim to
gauntness. He is very abstemious, hardly ever
touching alcohol, caring little for meat, but
fond of fruit, and never averse to a strong cup
of coffee or a good cigar. He takes extremely
little exercise, although his good color and
quickness of step would suggest to those who do
not know better that he is in the best of
training, and one who lives in the open air.
His simplicity as to clothes has already been
described. One would be startled to see him
with a bright tie, a loud checked suit, or a
fancy waistcoat, and yet there is a curious
sense of fastidiousness about the plain things he
delights in. Perhaps he is not wholly
responsible personally for this state of
affairs. In conversation Edison is direct,
courteous, ready to discuss a topic with anybody
worth talking to, and, in spite of his sore
deafness, an excellent listener. No one ever
goes away from Edison in doubt as to what he
thinks or means, but he is ever shy and
diffident to a degree if the talk turns on
himself rather than on his work.
If the authors were asked, after having written
the foregoing pages, to explain here the reason
for Edison's success, based upon their
observations so far made, they would first
answer that he combines with a vigorous and
normal physical structure a mind capable of clear
and logical thinking, and an imagination of
unusual activity. But this would by no means
offer a complete explanation. There are many
men of equal bodily and mental vigor who have not
achieved a tithe of his accomplishment. What
other factors are there to be taken into
consideration to explain this phenomenon?
First, a stolid, almost phlegmatic, nervous
system which takes absolutely no notice of
ennui--a system like that of a Chinese
ivory-carver who works day after day and month
after month on a piece of material no larger than
your hand. No better illustration of this
characteristic can be found than in the
development of the nickel pocket for the storage
battery, an element the size of a short
lead-pencil, on which upward of five years were
spent in experiments, costing over a million
dollars, day after day, always apparently with
the same tubes but with small variations
carefully tabulated in the note-books. To an
ordinary person the mere sight of such a tube
would have been as distasteful, certainly after
a week or so, as the smell of a quail to a man
striving to eat one every day for a month, near
the end of his gastronomic ordeal. But to
Edison these small perforated steel tubes held
out as much of a fascination at the end of five
years as when the search was first begun, and
every morning found him as eager to begin the
investigation anew as if the battery was an
absolutely novel problem to which his thoughts
had just been directed.
Another and second characteristic of Edison's
personality contributing so strongly to his
achievements is an intense, not to say
courageous, optimism in which no thought of
failure can enter, an optimism born of
self-confidence, and becoming--after forty or
fifty years of experience more and more a sense
of certainty in the accomplishment of success.
In the overcoming of difficulties he has the
same intellectual pleasure as the chess-master
when confronted with a problem requiring all the
efforts of his skill and experience to solve.
To advance along smooth and pleasant paths, to
encounter no obstacles, to wrestle with no
difficulties and hardships--such has absolutely
no fascination to him. He meets obstruction
with the keen delight of a strong man battling
with the waves and opposing them in sheer
enjoyment, and the greater and more apparently
overwhelming the forces that may tend to sweep
him back, the more vigorous his own efforts to
forge through them. At the conclusion of the
ore-milling experiments, when practically his
entire fortune was sunk in an enterprise that had
to be considered an impossibility, when at the
age of fifty he looked back upon five or six
years of intense activity expended apparently for
naught, when everything seemed most black and
the financial clouds were quickly gathering on
the horizon, not the slightest idea of repining
entered his mind. The main experiment had
succeeded--he had accomplished what he sought
for. Nature at another point had outstripped
him, yet he had broadened his own sum of
knowledge to a prodigious extent. It was only
during the past summer (1910) that one of
the writers spent a Sunday with him riding over
the beautiful New Jersey roads in an
automobile, Edison in the highest spirits and
pointing out with the keenest enjoyment the many
beautiful views of valley and wood. The
wanderings led to the old ore-milling plant at
Edison, now practically a mass of deserted
buildings all going to decay. It was a
depressing sight, marking such titanic but
futile struggles with nature. To Edison,
however, no trace of sentiment or regret
occurred, and the whole ruins were apparently as
much a matter of unconcern as if he were viewing
the remains of Pompeii. Sitting on the porch
of the White House, where he lived during that
period, in the light of the setting sun, his
fine face in repose, he looked as placidly over
the scene as a happy farmer over a field of
ripening corn. All that he said was: "I
never felt better in my life than during the five
years I worked here. Hard work, nothing to
divert my thought, clear air and simple food
made my life very pleasant. We learned a great
deal. It will be of benefit to some one some
time." Similarly, in connection with the
storage battery, after having experimented
continuously for three years, it was found to
fall below his expectations, and its manufacture
had to be stopped. Hundreds of thousands of
dollars had been spent on the experiments, and,
largely without Edison's consent, the battery
had been very generally exploited in the press.
To stop meant not only to pocket a great loss
already incurred, facing a dark and uncertain
future, but to most men animated by ordinary
human feelings, it meant more than anything
else, an injury to personal pride. Pride?
Pooh! that had nothing to do with the really
serious practical problem, and the writers can
testify that at the moment when his decision was
reached, work stopped and the long vista ahead
was peered into, Edison was as little concerned
as if he had concluded that, after all, perhaps
peach-pie might be better for present diet than
apple-pie. He has often said that time meant
very little to him, that he had but a small
realization of its passage, and that ten or
twenty years were as nothing when considering the
development of a vital invention.
These references to personal pride recall
another characteristic of Edison wherein he
differs from most men. There are many
individuals who derive an intense and not
improper pleasure in regalia or military
garments, with plenty of gold braid and brass
buttons, and thus arrayed, in appearing before
their friends and neighbors. Putting at the
head of the procession the man who makes his
appeal to public attention solely because of the
brilliancy of his plumage, and passing down the
ranks through the multitudes having a gradually
decreasing sense of vanity in their personal
accomplishment, Edison would be placed at the
very end. Reference herein has been made to the
fact that one of the two great English
universities wished to confer a degree upon him,
but that he was unable to leave his work for the
brief time necessary to accept the honor. At
that occasion it was pointed out to him that he
should make every possible sacrifice to go, that
the compliment was great, and that but few
Americans had been so recognized. It was
hope- less--an appeal based on sentiment.
Before him was something real--work to be
accomplished--a problem to be solved.
Beyond, was a prize as intangible as the button
of the Legion of Honor, which he concealed
from his friends that they might not feel he was
"showing off." The fact is that Edison cares
little for the approval of the world, but that
he cares everything for the approval of himself.
Difficult as it may be--perhaps
impossible--to trace its origin, Edison
possesses what he would probably call a
well-developed case of New England
conscience, for whose approval he is incessantly
occupied.
These, then, may be taken as the
characteristics of Edison that have enabled him
to accomplish more than most men--a strong
body, a clear and active mind, a developed
imagination, a capacity of great mental and
physical concentration, an iron-clad nervous
system that knows no ennui, intense optimism,
and courageous self-confidence. Any one having
these capacities developed to the same extent,
with the same opportunities for use, would
probably accomplish as much. And yet there is a
peculiarity about him that so far as is known has
never been referred to before in print. He
seems to be conscientiously afraid of appearing
indolent, and in consequence subjects himself
regularly to unnecessary hardship. Working all
night is seldom necessary, or until two or three
o'clock in the morning, yet even now he
persists in such tests upon his strength.
Recently one of the writers had occasion to
present to him a long type- written document of
upward of thirty pages for his approval. It was
taken home to Glenmont. Edison had a few minor
corrections to make, probably not more than a
dozen all told. They could have been embodied
by interlineations and marginal notes in the
ordinary way, and certainly would not have
required more than ten or fifteen minutes of his
time. Yet what did he do? HE COPIED
OUT PAINSTAKINGLY THE
ENTIRE PAPER IN LONG HAND,
embodying the corrections as he went along, and
presented the result of his work the following
morning. At the very least such a task must
have occupied several hours. How can such a
trait--and scores of similar experiences could
be given --be explained except by the fact
that, evidently, he felt the need of special
schooling in industry--that under no
circumstances must he allow a thought of
indolence to enter his mind?
Undoubtedly in the days to come Edison will not
only be recognized as an intellectual prodigy,
but as a prodigy of industry--of hard work.
In his field as inventor and man of science he
stands as clear-cut and secure as the lighthouse
on a rock, and as indifferent to the tumult
around. But as the "old man"-- and before
he was thirty years old he was affectionately so
called by his laboratory associates--he is a
normal, fun-loving, typical American. His
sense of humor is intense, but not of the
hothouse, over- developed variety. One of his
favorite jokes is to enter the legal department
with an air of great humility and apply for a job
as an inventor! Never is he so preoccupied or
fretted with cares as not to drop all thought of
his work for a few moments to listen to a new
story, with a ready smile all the while, and a
hearty, boyish laugh at the end. His laugh,
in fact, is sometimes almost aboriginal;
slapping his hands delightedly on his knees, he
rocks back and forth and fairly shouts his
pleasure. Recently a daily report of one of his
companies that had just been started contained a
large order amounting to several thousand
dollars, and was returned by him with a
miniature sketch of a small individual viewing
that particular item through a telescope! His
facility in making hasty but intensely graphic
sketches is proverbial. He takes great delight
in imitating the lingo of the New York street
gamin. A dignified person named James may be
greeted with: "Hully Gee! Chimmy, when did
youse blow in?" He likes to mimic and imitate
types, generally, that are distasteful to him.
The sanctimonious hypocrite, the sleek
speculator, and others whom he has probably
encountered in life are done "to the queen's
taste."
One very cold winter's day he entered the
laboratory library in fine spirits, "doing"
the decayed dandy, with imaginary cane under his
arm, struggling to put on a pair of tattered
imaginary gloves, with a self- satisfied smirk
and leer that would have done credit to a real
comedian. This particular bit of acting was
heightened by the fact that even in the coldest
weather he wears thin summer clothes, generally
acid-worn and more or less disreputable. For
protection he varies the number of his suits of
underclothing, sometimes wearing three or four
sets, according to the thermometer.
If one could divorce Edison from the idea of
work, and could regard him separate and apart
from his embodiment as an inventor and man of
science, it might truly be asserted that his
temperament is essentially mercurial. Often he
is in the highest spirits, with all the
spontaneity of youth, and again he is
depressed, moody, and violently angry. Anger
with him, however, is a good deal like the
story attributed to Napoleon:
"Sire, how is it that your judgment is not
affected by your great rage?" asked one of his
courtiers.
"Because," said the Emperor, "I never
allow it to rise above this line," drawing his
hand across his throat. Edison has been seen
sometimes almost beside himself with anger at a
stupid mistake or inexcusable oversight on the
part of an assistant, his voice raised to a high
pitch, sneeringly expressing his feelings of
contempt for the offender; and yet when the
culprit, like a bad school-boy, has left the
room, Edison has immediately returned to his
normal poise, and the incident is a thing of the
past. At other times the unsettled condition
persists, and his spleen is vented not only on
the original instigator but upon others who may
have occasion to see him, sometimes hours
afterward. When such a fit is on him the word
is quickly passed around, and but few of his
associates find it necessary to consult with him
at the time. The genuine anger can generally be
distinguished from the imitation article by those
who know him intimately by the fact that when
really enraged his forehead between the eyes
partakes of a curious rotary movement that cannot
be adequately described in words. It is as if
the storm-clouds within are moving like a
whirling cyclone. As a general rule, Edison
does not get genuinely angry at mistakes and
other human weaknesses of his subordinates; at
best he merely simulates anger. But woe betide
the one who has committed an act of bad faith,
treachery, dishonesty, or ingratitude;
THEN Edison can show what it is for a strong
man to get downright mad. But in this respect
he is singularly free, and his spells of anger
are really few. In fact, those who know him
best are continually surprised at his moderation
and patience, often when there has been great
provocation. People who come in contact with
him and who may have occasion to oppose his
views, may leave with the impression that he is
hot-tempered; nothing could be further from the
truth. He argues his point with great
vehemence, pounds on the table to emphasize his
views, and illustrates his theme with a wealth
of apt similes; but, on account of his
deafness, it is difficult to make the argument
really two-sided. Before the visitor can fully
explain his side of the matter some point is
brought up that starts Edison off again, and
new arguments from his viewpoint are poured
forth. This constant interruption is taken by
many to mean that Edison has a small opinion of
any arguments that oppose him; but he is only
intensely in earnest in presenting his own side.
If the visitor persists until Edison has seen
both sides of the controversy, he is always
willing to frankly admit that his own views may
be unsound and that his opponent is right. In
fact, after such a controversy, both parties
going after each other hammer and tongs, the
arguments TO HIM being carried on at the
very top of one's voice to enable him to hear,
and FROM HIM being equally loud in the
excitement of the discussion, he has often
said: "I see now that my position was
absolutely rotten. "
Obviously, however, all of these personal
characteristics have nothing to do with
Edison's position in the world of affairs.
They show him to be a plain, easy- going,
placid American, with no sense of
self-importance, and ready at all times to have
his mind turned into a lighter channel. In
private life they show him to be a good citizen,
a good family man, absolutely moral, temperate
in all things, and of great charitableness to
all mankind. But what of his position in the
age in which he lives? Where does he rank in
the mountain range of great Americans?
It is believed that from the other chapters of
this book the reader can formulate his own answer
to the question.
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