d, he turned to me and said: 'I have been many years in
the business, but have never seen an optic nerve like that of this
gentleman. An ordinary optic nerve is about the thickness of a thread,
but his is like a cord. He must be a remarkable man in some walk of
life. Who is he?'"

It has certainly required great bodily vigor and physical capacity to
sustain such fatigue as Edison has all his life imposed upon himself,
to the extent on one occasion of going five days without sleep. In a
conversation during 1909, he remarked, as though it were nothing out of
the way, that up to seven years previously his average of daily working
hours was nineteen and one-half, but that since then he figured it
at eighteen. He said he stood it easily, because he was interested in
everything, and was reading and studying all the time. For instance,
he had gone to bed the night before exactly at twelve and had arisen at
4.30 A. M. to read some New York law reports. It was suggested that the
secret of it might be that he did not live in the past, but was always
looking forward to a greater future, to which he replied: "Yes, that's
it. I don't live with the past; I am living for to-day and to-morrow. I
am interested in every department of science, arts, and manufacture.
I read all the time on astronomy, chemistry, biology, physics,
music, metaphysics, mechanics, and other branches--political economy,
electricity, and, in fact, all things that are making for progress in
the world. I get all the proceedings of the scientific societies, the
principal scientific and trade journals, and read them. I also read The
Clipper, The Police Gazette, The Billboard, The Dramatic Mirror, and
a lot of similar publications, for I like to know what is going on. In
this way I keep up to date, and live in a great moving world of my own,
and, what's more, I enjoy every minute of it." Referring to some event
of the past, he said: "Spilt milk doesn't interest me. I have spilt lots
of it, and while I have always felt it for a few days, it is quickly
forgotten, and I turn again to the future." During another talk on
kindred affairs it was suggested to Edison that, as he had worked so
hard all his life, it was about time for him to think somewhat of the
pleasures of travel and the social side of life. To which he replied
laughingly: "I already have a schedule worked out. From now until I am
seventy-five years of age, I expect to keep more or less busy with my
regular w