Upstairs was the laboratory proper--a long room containing an array of chemicals; for Edison likes to have a sample of every kind, in case it might suddenly be requisite. On the tables and in the cupboards were lying all manner of telegraphic apparatus, lenses, crucibles, and pieces of his own inventions. A perfect tangle of telegraph wires coming from all parts of the Union were focussed at one end of the room. An ash-covered forge, a cabinet organ, a rusty stove with an old pivot chair, a bench well stained with oils and acids, completed the equipment of this curious den, into which the sunlight filtered through the chemical jars and fell in coloured patches along the dusty floor.
The moving spirit of this haunt by day and night is well described as an overgrown school-boy. He is a man of a slim, but wiry figure, about five feet ten inches in height. His face at this period was juvenile and beardless. The nose and chin were shapely and prominent, the mouth firm, the forehead wide and full above, but not very high. It was shaded by dark chestnut hair, just silvered with grey. His most remarkable features were his eyes, which are blue-grey and deeply set, with an intense and piercing expression. When his attention was not aroused, he seemed to retire into himself, as though his mind had drifted far away, and came back slowly to the present. He was pale with nightwork, and his thoughtful eyes had an old look in serious moments.
But his smile was boyish and pleasant, and his manner a trifle shy.
There was nothing of the dandy about Edison, He boasted no jewelled fingers or superfine raiment. An easy coat soiled with chemicals, a battered wide-awake, and boots guiltless of polish, were good enough for this inspired workman. An old silver watch, sophisticated with magnetism, and keeping an eccentric time peculiar to it, was his only ornament. On social occasions, of course, he adopted a more conventional costume. Visitors to the laboratory often found him in his shirt-sleeves, with dishevelled hair and grimy hands.
The writer of 'A Night with Edison' has described him as bending like a wizard over the smoky fumes of some lurid lamps arranged on a brick furnace, as if he were summoning the powers of darkness.
'It is much after midnight now,' says this author. 'The machinery below has ceased to rumble, and the tired hands have gone to their homes. Ahasty lunch has been sent up. We are at the thermoscope. Suddenly a telegraph instrument begins to click. The inventor strikes a grotesque attitude, a herring in one hand and a biscuit in the other, and with a voice a little muffled with a mouthful of both, translates aloud, slowly, the sound intelligible to him alone: "London.--News of death of Lord John Russell premature." "John Blanchard, whose failure was announced yesterday, has suicided (no, that was a bad one) SUCCEEDED! in adjusting his affairs, and will continue in business."'
His tastes are simple and his habits are plain. On one occasion, when invited to a dinner at Delmonico's restaurant, he contented himself with a slice of pie and a cup of tea. Another time he is said to have declined a public dinner with the remark that 100,000 dollars would not tempt him to sit through two hours of 'personal glorification.' He dislikes notoriety, thinking that a man is to be 'measured by what he does, not by what is said about him.' But he likes to talk about his inventions and show them to visitors at Menlo Park. In disposition he is sociable, affectionate, and generous, giving himself no airs, and treating all alike. His humour is native, and peculiar to himself, so there is some excuse for the newspaper reporters who take his jokes about the capabilities of Nature AU SERIEUX; and publish them for gospel.
His assistants are selected for their skill and physical endurance. The chief at Menlo Park was Mr. Charles Batchelor, a Scotchman, who had a certain interest in the inventions, but the others, including mathematicians, chemists, electricians, secretary, bookkeeper, and mechanics, were paid a salary. They were devoted to Edison, who, though he worked them hard at times, was an indulgent master, and sometimes joined them in a general holiday. All of them spoke in the highest terms of the inventor and the man.
The Menlo establishment was unique in the world. It was founded for the sole purpose of applying the properties of matter to the production of new inventions. For love of science or the hope of gain, men had experimented before, and worked out their inventions in the laboratories of colleges and manufactories. But Edison seems to have been the first to organise a staff of trained assistants to hunt up useful facts in books, old and modern, and discover fresh ones by experiment, in order to develop his ideas or suggest new ones, together with skilled workmen to embody them in the fittest manner; and all with the avowed object of taking out patents, and introducing the novel apparatus as a commercial speculation. He did not manufacture his machines for sale; he simply created the models, and left their multiplication to other people.
There are different ways of looking at Nature:
'To some she is the goddess great;
To some the milch-cow of the field;
Their business is to calculate The butter she will yield.'
The institution has proved a remarkable success. From it has emanated a series of marvellous inventions which have carried the name of Edison throughout the whole civilised world. Expense was disregarded in making the laboratory as efficient as possible; the very best equipment was provided, the ablest assistants employed, and the profit has been immense. Edison is a millionaire; the royalties from his patents alone are said to equal the salary of a Prime Minister.
Although Edison was the master spirit of the band, it must not be forgotten that his assistants were sometimes co-inventors with himself.
