ther one approves or not, it is at least admirable stoicism, of which
the world has too little. A similar instance is that of a visit paid to
the laboratory by some one bringing a gold medal from a foreign society.
It was a very hot day in summer, the visitor was in full social regalia
of silk hat and frock-coat, and insisted that he could deliver the medal
only into Edison's hands. At that moment Edison, stripped pretty nearly
down to the buff, was at the very crisis of an important experiment, and
refused absolutely to be interrupted. He had neither sought nor expected
the medal; and if the delegate didn't care to leave it he could take it
away. At last Edison was overpersuaded, and, all dirty and perspiring as
he was, received the medal rather than cause the visitor to come again.
On one occasion, receiving a medal in New York, Edison forgot it on
the ferry-boat and left it behind him. A few years ago, when Edison
had received the Albert medal of the Royal Society of Arts, one of the
present authors called at the laboratory to see it. Nobody knew where
it was; hours passed before it could be found; and when at last the
accompanying letter was produced, it had an office date stamp right over
the signature of the royal president. A visitor to the laboratory with
one of these medallic awards asked Edison if he had any others. "Oh
yes," he said, "I have a couple of quarts more up at the house!" All
this sounds like lack of appreciation, but it is anything else than
that. While in Paris, in 1889, he wore the decoration of the Legion
of Honor whenever occasion required, but at all other times turned the
badge under his lapel "because he hated to have fellow-Americans think
he was showing off." And any one who knows Edison will bear testimony to
his utter absence of ostentation. It may be added that, in addition
to the two quarts of medals up at the house, there will be found at
Glenmont many other signal tokens of esteem and good-will--a beautiful
cigar-case from the late Tsar of Russia, bronzes from the Government of
Japan, steel trophies from Krupp, and a host of other mementos, to one
of which he thus refers: "When the experiments with the light were going
on at Menlo Park, Sarah Bernhardt came to America. One evening, Robert
L. Cutting, of New York, brought her out to see the light. She was a
terrific 'rubberneck.' She jumped all over the machinery, and I had one
man especially to guard her dress. She wanted to know every