Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1883-12-23

It LYTLE1S, PaWnbrOk0r and JeW0l0r!
j
OUR GREAT INVENTOR.
Some Interesting Recollections of
Thomas Edison.
His Work as 4 Telegraph sOperatOr
Hills Personal PeculiaritiesJ
and His Bashfulness
Among Women.
louisville Courier-Journal. I


''Oh, yes, there are great many of us who
remember Mr.. Edison" said an old Western
Union operator to reporter yesterday 81
boarded in the same house with him for
months and worked at the same table with
him. Smart? Well, should say So You
wouldn't think it, though, to talk to him. He
is like almost ali inventors, poor describer.
He could make new machine easier than he
could tell Won about it. l remember when he
first came here He was a modest, shy sort of
boy, and l took liking to him. He was
hard to get acquainted with, but after you
got to know him he was sociable enough. If
you have noticed men much you will find
that they all have one overwhelming passion
1t may be drink, it may be cards, it may be
petticoats. But there is one thing to which
they are more strongly addicted than all
the rest put together. Well, Tom was
one of the few men who never seemed to be
troubled with a vice. He couldn't be in
duced to touch a card. He never took
drink in his life, and the rustic of women's
skirts, that made many good man go wrong,
never set his heart a-beating The man was
wrapped up in machinery He had no time,
no thought for anything else. He and were
doing day work, and at night, instead of
going to the theatre, OF amusing himself as
the rest Of us did, he would go up to his
room and set to work with all sorts of cleo
trical appliances. And he used to have the
queerest of rooms. 1t looked like an old
junk shop. Our poor old landlady used to be
in deathly fear of "some of them things goin'
off," as she expressed it, and the negro
servants used to give him and his apartment
wide berth. He had a funny habit when
he was studying anything particularly
abstruse of wrapping towel soaked in ice
water around his head and keeping his feet in
warm water
He was one of the most superstitious men
| ever knew. He would always study with
the same coat on-a ragged, torn old vel
Veteen jacket without a button-because it
gave him luck, he said. He had a moral
aversion to cats, and swore they were respon-
Slble for every mistake he ever made | have
known him to walk two blocks out of his way
to avoid seeing an old pussie that used to sit
contentedly on the front doorstep of house
that was on his way home. He used to Sc
rlously talk OF lnventing an electric machine
to kill them with, and for all know he has,
for there isn't thing that Tom Edison
wanted to do with machinery that he couldn't
do.
Like all men of delicate nervous organ
lEation, he was extremely irritable at times
He had to eschew tea and coffee, and often
said that he verify believed that a drink of
whisky would have set him crazy.
Edison was as considerable as a woman of
the feelings of Others, and never knew him to
say harsh word about any one He was one
of those shrinking, timid, pale-faced men
whom you sometimes meet, with the keenest
Senslblllty and the most retiring modeSty.
You gould be with him for a lifetime and he
would never allude to anything he did or in
tended to do.
81 often used to wonder what his feelings
were toward his beloved machines. He used
to hang over a network of wheels within
wheels, and cogs within cogs, adjusting,
changing, fitting in new ones, and removing
old ones, and have sat by the hour watch
ing the rapt. tense look on his face. I believe
he regarded this cold iron as living, breath
ing creature, to which all the love and ten
derness of his nature was given. These masses
of inert matter must have assumed all sorts
of fantastic shapes to his busy mind.
IF Edison was backward among men he
was absolutely helpless among women. Our
landlady had pretty daughter, who, by the
way, still lives here, and that girl, l think,
caused Edison as much trouble as his much
hated feline enemies. He used to sit near
Der at the table, and she took especial pains
to please him. He got to loving her, as much
as he could love anything that was not in the
machinery line, and it was curious to see his
passion struggling with his dffiidence. The
girl, with true feminine coquetry, would keep
the poor fellow in hot water all the time by
staving OFF the great confession. One day he
met her on the stairs, and nerved himself I'D
TO go through the fearful ordeal of having to
tell MS love. She was fairly caught, and be-