largely without Edison's consent, the battery had been
very generally exploited in the press. To stop meant not only to pocket
a great loss already incurred, facing a dark and uncertain future, but
to most men animated by ordinary human feelings, it meant more than
anything else, an injury to personal pride. Pride? Pooh! that had
nothing to do with the really serious practical problem, and the writers
can testify that at the moment when his decision was reached, work
stopped and the long vista ahead was peered into, Edison was as little
concerned as if he had concluded that, after all, perhaps peach-pie
might be better for present diet than apple-pie. He has often said that
time meant very little to him, that he had but a small realization
of its passage, and that ten or twenty years were as nothing when
considering the development of a vital invention.

These references to personal pride recall another characteristic of
Edison wherein he differs from most men. There are many individuals
who derive an intense and not improper pleasure in regalia or military
garments, with plenty of gold braid and brass buttons, and thus arrayed,
in appearing before their friends and neighbors. Putting at the head of
the procession the man who makes his appeal to public attention solely
because of the brilliancy of his plumage, and passing down the ranks
through the multitudes having a gradually decreasing sense of vanity in
their personal accomplishment, Edison would be placed at the very end.
Reference herein has been made to the fact that one of the two great
English universities wished to confer a degree upon him, but that he
was unable to leave his work for the brief time necessary to accept the
honor. At that occasion it was pointed out to him that he should make
every possible sacrifice to go, that the compliment was great, and that
but few Americans had been so recognized. It was hopeless--an
appeal based on sentiment. Before him was something real--work to be
accomplished--a problem to be solved. Beyond, was a prize as intangible
as the button of the Legion of Honor, which he concealed from his
friends that they might not feel he was "showing off." The fact is that
Edison cares little for the approval of the world, but that he cares
everything for the approval of himself. Difficult as it may be--perhaps
impossible--to trace its origin, Edison possesses what he would probably
call a well-developed case of New England conscience, f