CONTEMPORARY PORTRAITS. NEW SERIES.-No. 23. THOMAS ALVA EDISON. ALL kinds of seership are rare. The possessor of the gift of vision which the Scotch call second-sight, and which penetrates into a hidden sea of subtle ether that seems to play mysteriously about life's path, is not an individual whom we meet every day. But still more difficult to meet with is a person endowed with what we will call first-sight, that is, with the gift of clear and penetrating vision into the actual life that rolls around us. The generality have lack-lustre eyes and see nothing beyond their own noses; a few take a lively interest in watching and sharing in anything bright, new, and original-these are souls not quite asleep. But they are very few indeed who are sufficiently awake to realise how marvellous a world this is in which we live; what huge sleeping powers lie within it, waiting only for the hand of man to rouse and direct their boundless activity. Once, in "Essays and Reviews," a man who ought to have known better (Baden Powell) said that "the meaning of moral laws controlling physical' is not very clear." The meaning is this, that no degraded race is trusted with great powers. Were the leading races of the world to lose their orderliness and responsibility, with these qualities, we may be sure, would vanish their faculty of wielding the vast yet delicate mechanical powers to which they owe so much. Concurrently with the growth of civilisation these powers have developed. There were certain achievements of ancient civilisations which vanished with their decline and have never re-appeared. Everyone who will help to put his discoveries to wise uses can help the inventor to invent. The poet will not compose if there is no hope of a listening ear; the singer counts upon, almost lives upon, the sympathy of his audience; the representative man would be as badly off without the people as popular units would be helpless without representative, or, to use an American expression, pivotal men. Strange as it may seem, Mr. Edison, a seer whose seership is held to Matter, has many of the characteristics ascribed to the seer of occult things. He reaches the acme of discovery very often in the dead of night; his face is not marked by the anxious gravity, the irremovable knots and furrows that mark laborious thought, but rather seems the face of one whose best things come by inspiration. Like the prophets of old, too, he is not of the world-wears shabby garments, does not care to be fêted, lives in his dreams. He might be a follower of the deity of the oracle, and say, "I have come to this land of Delphi, where, taking his seat in the very centre of the earth, Phoibos utters his chants to mortals, ever soothsaying to them that which is and that which shall be." Mr. Edison, in showing us that which is, and which we have not seen before, is also declaring that which shall be. Readers of the late Lord Lytton's "Coming Race" will now at least be obliged to own that we need no longer fear a coming invasion of a superior class of humanity ; we are learning to be the "coming race" ourselves. Mr. Edison appears to regard nature as containing all possibilities, which have only to be seen to be utilised. He scornfully rejects the idea that he is possessed of genius, or of any quality superior to those of common man. The thing is there, and has but to be seen; this is the formula of his invention, and he is ready to give his time to look for it until it is seen. Anybody could do that. So, in truth-anybody with the right sort of eyes. In spite of his repudiation of genius, Mr. Edison has what has been described as its eminent characteristic-the capacity of taking trouble. A Chinese sage averred that, if an ordinary man succeeds by one effort, the superior man will succeed by ten; if the ordinary man succeeds by ten, the superior man is prepared to continue his efforts up to a hundred. Mr. Edison, in spite of his unclouded brow and youthful air of inspiration, is ready to extend his efforts to thousands. While intent upon his aim, he will try the most unlikely projects, follow the most wrong-headed schemes which sound science would greet with scorn, but in the end something in him-call it infallible instinct, luck, inspiration, perseverance, or anything else-leads him into the right direction. One result-a very trifling little button to all appearance, but the crucial part of an invention-was reached after no fewer than three thousand experiments. Americans love celebrities; they delight in interviewing and lionising. This is carried to such an extent that a number of people, unworthy of any special notice, are "written up" by the less important papers, in the true American style. It is fortunate when the unwearying interviewer meets with a celebrity so genuinely interesting, so wonderful in his own way, as Edison the inventor. How many times has his house been described, his personal appearance, manners, and habits given to the public, though he is still but a young man! Yet every account of him is full of interest, because his character is so remarkable. Mr. Edison is the magician of the nineteenth century; he has made of modern America a land more wonderful than any fabled country of the Arabian |