Stories of Great Inventors Part 32

He is five feet ten inches high.

His face is boyish, but earnest.

He has light gray eyes.

His hair is dark, slightly gray, and falls over his forehead.

He is a pleasant man to see.

He loves his work.

For ten years he has averaged eighteen hour's work a day.

You have seen that he is not a man to give up easily.

Once an invention of his--a printing press--failed.

He took five men into the upper part of his factory.

He declared he would never come down until it worked satisfactorily.

For two days and nights, and for twelve hours more, he worked without sleep.

He conquered the difficulty.

Then he slept thirty hours.

He often works all night.

He says he can work best when the rest of the world sleeps.

But he likes fun, too.

One day he said to his old friend, of whom he learned telegraphing,

"Look here--I am able to send a message from New York to Boston without any wire at all."

"That is impossible," said his friend.

"Oh, no, it's a new invention."

"Well, how is it done?" said Mr. McKensie.

"By sealing it up and sending by mail," was the comical answer.

He has two children.

One, a girl, Mary, is nicknamed "Dot."

The other, a son, Thomas, is called "Dash."

Mr. Edison doesn't like to have great dinners given in his honor.

But the world gives him great honors.

At the Paris Exposition in 1881, two great rooms were filled with his inventions.

The rooms were lighted with his lights.

He receives letters daily in French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, and Turkish.

Mr. Edison says, "Anything is possible with electricity."

That he is a genius, n.o.body can deny.

But do you suppose he could have done all these things without his great reading, or if he had been a lazy person?