XIV
A TALK WITH EDISON
DRAMATIC INCIDENTS IN HIS EARLY LIFE
TO discover the opinion of Thomas A. Edison concerning what makes and constitutes success in life is an easy matter—if one can first discover Mr. Edison. I camped three weeks in the vicinity of Orange, N.J., awaiting the opportunity to come upon the great inventor and voice my questions. It seemed a rather hopeless and discouraging affair until he was really before me; but, truth to say, he is one of the most accessible of men, and only reluctantly allows himself to be hedged in by pressure of endless affairs.
“Mr. Edison is always glad to see any visitor,” said a gentleman who is continually with him, “except when he is hot on the trail of something he has been working for, and then it is as much as a man’s head is worth to come in on him.”
He certainly was not hot on the trail of anything on the morning when, for the tenth time, I rang at the gate in the fence which surrounds the laboratory on Valley Road, Orange. A young man appeared, who conducted me up the walk to the Edison laboratory office.