The Social Side Of Edison -10
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."
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