Woodside Villa July 17 1885

Slept so sound that even Mina didn’t bother me as It would stagger the mind of Raphael in a dream to imagine a being comparable to the Maid of Chataqua so I must have slept very sound — As usual I was the last one up. This is because Im so deaf — found everybody smiling and happy — Read more of Miss Clevelands book, think she is a smart woman — relatively — Damons diary progressing finely —
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Woodside Villa July 16 1885

I find on waking up this morning that I went to bed last night with the curtains up in my room — glad the family next door retire early — I blushed retroactively to think of it — Slept well — weather clear — warm. Thermometer prolongatweln [?] progressive — day so fine that barometer anaethized [?] — breakfasted — Diaried a lot of nonsense — Read some of Longfellows Hyperon, read to where he tells about a statue of a saint what was attacked with somnambulism and went around nights with a lantern repairing roofs, especially that of a widow woman who neglected her family to pray all day in the church
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Woodside Villa july 15 1885

Slept well — breakfasted clear up to my adams apple — took shawl strap and went to Boston with Damon with following memorandum of things to get.
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Woodside Villa, July 14 1885.

Dot introduced me to a new day at 5.30 am. Arose — toileted quickly — breakfasted — then went from boat to street car — asked colored gentleman, how long before car left — worked his articulating apparatus so weakly I didn’t hear word he said. — it’s nice to be a little deaf when travelling you can ask everybody directions then pump your imagination for the answer, it strengthens this faculty. —
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Menlo Park NJ, July 13 1885
(added a new tag for Edisonblog! so you can find the other entries)

Woke (is there such a word) at 6 oclock– slipped down the declivity of unconciousness again until 7. arose and tried to shave with a razor so dull that everytime I scraped my face it looked as if I was in the throes of cholera morbus. By shaving often I too a certain extent circumvent the diabolical malignity of these razors — if I could get my mind down to details perhaps I could learn to sharpen it, but on the otherhand I might cut myself- As I had to catch the 7.30 am train for New York I hurried breakfast, crowded meat potatoes, eggs, coffee, tandem down into the chemical room of my body I’ve now got dyspepsia in that diabolical thing that Carlyle calls the stomach, rushed and caught train– Bought a New York World at Elizabeth for my mental breakfast– Among the million of perfected mortals on Manhattan island two of them took it into their heads to cut their naval chord from mother earth and be born into a new world, while two other less developed citizens stopped two of the neighbors from living– The details of these two little incidents conveyed to my mind what beautiful creatures we live among, and how with the aid of the police, civilization so rapidly advances–
Went to New York via DeoGrosseo Street ferry- took cars across town- saw a woman get into car that was so tall and frightfully thin as well as dried up that my mechanical mind at once conceived the idea that it would be the proper thing to run a lancet into her arm and knew [ed: knee?] joints and insert automatic self feeding oil cups to diminish the creaking when she walked– Got off at Broadway- tried experiment of walking two miles to our office 65 5th Ave with idea it would alleviate my dyspeptic pains– It didn’t — Went into Scribner & Sons on way up and saw about a thousand books I wanted right off. Mind No 1 said why not buy a box of fluff and send to Boston now- Mind No 2 (acquired and worldly mind) gave a most withering mental glance and mind No 1 and said You fool, buy only two books, these you can carry without trouble and will last you until you get to Boston, Buying books in NYork to send to Boston is like “carrying coals to Newcastle” of course I took the advice of this Earthly adviser– Bought Aldrich’s Story of a Bad Boy which is a spongecake kind of literature, very witty and charming- and a work on Goethe Schiffer by Boynsen which is soggy literature a little wit + anecdote in this style of literature would have the same effect as baking soda on bread, give pleasing results.
Waited one hour for the appearance of a lawyer who is to cross-examine me on events that occurred 11 years ago– went on stand at 1130– He handed me a piece of paper with some figures on it, not another mark, asked in a childlike voice if these were my figures, what they were about and what day 11 years ago I made them– This implied compliment to the splendor of my memory was at first so pleasing to my vanity that I tried every means to trap my memory into stating just what he wanted– but then I thought what good is a compliment from a 10 cent lawyer, and I waived back my recollection. A lawsuit is the suicide of Time. — Got through at 3 30 PM– waded through a lot of accumulated correspondence mostly relating to other peoples business– Insull saw Wiman about getting car for Railroad Telegh experiment– will get costs in day or so. — Tomlinson made Sammy mad by saying he Insull was Valet to my intellect = Got $100 met Dot and skipped for the Argosy of the Puritan Sea; ie Sound Steamboat, — Dot is reading a novel– rather trashy. Love hash. — I completed reading Aldrich’s Bad Boy and advanced 50 pages in Goethe then retired to a “Sound” Sleep

To clarify, those Edisonblog! posts are drawn word-for-word from his diary (available as scanned pages here). He’s an odd guy, that Edison.

Menlo Park N.J.
Sunday july 12 1885

(it’s the rest of the day, and a long one, so continue in the extended entry…)

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Menlo Park N.J.
Sunday july 12 1885

After breakfast start reading Hawthorne’s English note Book don’t think much of it.– perhaps Im a literary barbarian and am not yet educated up to the point of appreciating fine writing– 90 per cent of his book is descriptive of old churches and graveyards and coronors — He and Geo Selwyn ought to have been appointed perpetual coroners of London. Two fine things in the book were these.
Hawthorne shewing to little Rose Hawthorne a big live lobster told her it was a very ugly thing and would bite everybody, wherupon she asked “if the first one God made, bit him”– again “Ghostland is beyond the jurisdiction of veracity” —

I think freckles on the skin are due to some salt of Iron, sunlight brings them out by reducing them from high to low state of oxidation- perhaps with a powerful magnet applied for some time, and then with proper chemicals, these
mud holes of beauty might be removed.

Dot is very is very busy cleaning the abode of our deaf and dumb parrot- she has fed it tons of edibles, and never got a sound out of it. This bird has the taciturnity of a statue, and the dirt producing capacity of a drove of buffalo.

This is by far the nicest day of this season, neither too hot or too cold.– it blooms on the apex of perfection — an Edenday Good day for an angels pic nic, They could lunch on the smell of flowers and new mown hay, drink the moisture of the air, and dance to the hum of bees, Fancy the soul of Plato astride of a butterfly, riding around Menlo Park with a lunch basket

Menlo Park N.J.
Sunday july 12 1885

Awakened at 8 15 AM. Powerful itching of my head, lots of white dry dandruff- what is this d–mnable material, Pertaps its the dust from the dry literary matter I’ve crowded into my noddle lately Its nomadic. gets all over my coat, must read about it in the Encyclopedia. Smoking too much makes me nervous– must lasso my natural tendency to aquire such habits– holding heavy cigar contantly in my mouth has deformed my upper lip, it has a sort of Havana curl. Arose at 9 oclock came down stairs expecting twas too late for breakfast– twas’nt. couldn’t eat much, nerves of stomach too nicotinny. The roots of tobacco plants must go clear through to hell. Satan’s principal agent Dyspepsia must have charge of this branch of the vegitable kingdom. — It has just occured to me that the brain may digest certain portions of food, say the etherial part, as well as the stomach — perhaps dandruff is the excreta of the mind– the quantity of this material being directly proportional to the amount of reading one indulges in. A book on German metaphysics would thus easily ruin a dress suit.

I bet you didn’t know that Thomas Edison was a blogger! Here’s his first entry:

Menlo Park N.J.
Sunday july 12 1885
Awakened at 5:15 AM. My eyes were embarassed by the sunbeams -turned my back to them and tried to take another dip into oblivion -succeeded — awakened at 7 A.M. thought of Mina, Daisy, and Mamma G__ put all 3 in my mental kalidescope to obtain a new combination a la Galton. took Mina as a basis, tried to improve her beauty by discarding and adding certain features borrowed from Daisy and Mamma G. a sort of Raphaelized beauty, got into it too deep, mind flew away and I went to sleep again.