The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-05-10
MRS. THOMAS A. EDISON.
The Great Inventors Wife Knows
Little of His Science
LesIie's Weekly.

hNNi4t > NGChiS.
Mrs. Thomas a. Edison is a very beauti-
full woman. If one hears singularly little
about her beauty ii is undoubtedly because
she never seems to think about it herself.
1t Is all very well theoretically to say that
Inconsistencies enhances beauty. and for
the discerning it may; but the most of peo-
pie are more impressed by the woman who
carries herself as if she were beautiful (as
the French say) than by loneliness that has
no coquetry, that shows no deep attention
to the toilet. that is genuinely inattentiVe
TO its own claims. Mrs. Edison's belongs
TO this last type. and thus she has a naivete
that the old Italian painters, at any rate,
would have deeply appreciated. She looks
like an Italian, for her coloring is softly,
not glitteringly, brunette, with a superb
complexion, the skin peculiarly fine in tex
ture, ana q rich deep color IN her cheeks
She is perhaps the only woman within a
hundred miles 'of New York that is fitted
by beauty and expression to make a perfect
model for a Madonna. For, though she
looks young, as if she were in the early
twenties she has the quiet poise of the wife
and mother. She is given, in general So
ciety. to talking but little. She is as UNI
touched by modern restlessness as If she
were a Greek woman. and looks as If she
could sit still for AZ hour any time without
an effort. and at the same time she shows
that she is perfectly alive, easily interested.
and responsive on the subjects that appeal
to her; these are, first. Mr., Edison and
her children, and next. children and their
education in general. She studies the SUBJ
Ject of infant education in a really scholarly
way, and studies with great intelligence and
devotion to make all good ideas and dis
coveries in that field serve her little boy
and girl. Then without the air of conde-
scension in such cases, she devoteS
much time TO reading detective novels with
Mr.. Edison. Yes, the detective novel is a
favorable diversion with that great brain,
and the Madonna-faced Wife of his bosom
is seriously attentive to his needs in this
way, and continually gathers up anything
she can find that she thinks will meet the
case. She reads them with him. whether
with any other sentiment than that of a
happy sense of duty fulfilled it is impossible
70 discover hnt when If comes To the SCI
entific works that he devours as a regular
diet she gives up. Mrs. Edison is not scien-
tific; she has as little affinity for physics
as other typical women, and that is say
ing q good deal, but a true story of a re-
cent occurrence at the great laboratory
would seem to show that one might go
further and say she has less affinity for
less knowledge of it rubs Off on her. She,
with pride, was showing some friends about
the laboratory and trying vaguely to tell
them things; they found her more at home
in cleaning the smuts off Mr.. Edison's face
than in any other phase of laboratory work,
complete establishment when a workman
came along and lit a gas jet by, electricity!
She had never heard of such a thing before.
Now, is not that a delicious story Any
one ought to recognize its veractty, for IL
is the kind of thing that only real life has
the happy audacity to compound, Dress
and society are the least of Mrs. Edison's
in Orange. n. j.. and. with her husband,
stays at some New York hotel for a few
weeks in the height of the season. 1t is for
music chiefly that this migration Is made,
and operas and concerts are the entertalh-
ments where they are oftenest seen.