Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 May 1878 — Doesn’t Want to be Paraded. [ARTICLE]

Doesn’t Want to be Paraded.

“The Lotus Club and other dubs want to give you a reception, Mr. Edison,” said L “ The Secretary of the New Jersey Association to-day obtained Cyrus W. Field’s promise to" preside at a dinner in your honor over at Newark.” Mr. Edison said : “ I have heard from several dubs, but I didn’t know anything about this New Jersey affair. They may eat their dinners as much as Siey please, but they must excuse me. I shall not attend any of them. I should not enjoy them. ” “ But you are being much talked about, Mr. Edison; and you have made some great inventions; and these gentlemen wish to testify their appreciation. ” “Yes; lam not indifferent to expressions of approval,” ho explained; “I suppose complimentary dinners and receptions will have to be given, in the present state of society, and it is very kind of the gentlemen, and all that, you know; but such affairs are ceremonious and not in my line. I cannot be a party to them. ” “Idou’tsee how you are to forever escape,” I persisted. “You shouldn’t have been famous if you didn’t want to bo talked about and bored by dinners. How are you going to escape this tide of congratulation, when it bears down on Menlo Park?” “ Well,” said he, with a puzzled expression, disposing of the last strawberry, “ I shall run away. I went to Menlo Park to get where the people wouldn't come much, and if they invade that I shall take to the woods again.” Let me say here that Mr. Edison is as bashful as a school-girl (of the last century). He has much less than his proportion of the brass of the period, and to this in part I refer his disinclination to be “received.” Besides this, he probably considers that sort of thing more or less flummery and humbug, as others do who have seen a good deal of it. It is not trne that he is slovenly and uncoutli in appearance. It is a fact, however, that he is not particularly careful in dress, and frequently goes unshaven for a good many days in succession, but this is because he is an intensely busy man. You may, perhaps, have noticed that no man who shaved and changed his shirt every morning ever invented a phonograph and took out 162 inventions before he was 31 years old. Edison is fur above all affectations, either in diet or dress, and is as simple-minded as a child. —New York letter.