Great Inventions and DiscoveriesPiercy, Willis Duff
History
Great Inventions and Discoveries
Piercy, Willis Duff
Inventions
Edison is a man of remarkable personality. Once when someone referred
to him as a genius and said that he supposed a genius worked only when
the spirit moved him, the inventor replied, "Genius is two per cent
inspiration and ninety-eight per cent perspiration." He certainly
possesses great native talent for inventing. This was apparent in his
early boyhood. But much of his marvelous success is due to the
intelligent direction of effort, to tireless perseverance, and to long
hours of work. In 1897 he devoted his attention exclusively to the
invention of a new storage battery, upon which he had been working for
five years. For more than a year he worked harder than a day laborer.
He was in his laboratory by half past seven in the morning; his
luncheon was sent to him there; he went home to dinner, but he returned
by eight o'clock. At half past eleven his carriage called for him, but
often the coachman was compelled to wait three or four hours before the
inventor was willing to suspend his work. While the first incandescent
electric lighting plant was being prepared in New York City, Edison
himself worked part of the time in the trenches, to be sure that the
work would be properly done.
There is scarcely an electrical apparatus or an electrical process in
existence to-day that does not bear the mark of some great change for
the better coming from this most ingenious of American inventors. He
has taken out more than four hundred patents on original inventions and
improvements. Mr. Edison is still living in his beautiful home at West
Orange, New Jersey, near his laboratory. He is frequently called the
"Wizard of Menlo Park."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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