Note 124 — Chapter V

The same correspondent, without my having asked him in regard to this, gives me the following details: "When about seven years old I saw a locomotive, its fire and smoke. My father's stove also made fire and smoke, but lacked wheels. If, then, I told my father, we put wheels under the stove, it would move like a locomotive. Later, when about thirteen, the sight of a steam threshing-machine suggested to me the idea of making a horseless wagon. I began a childish construction of one, which my father made me give up," etc. The tendency toward mechanical invention shows itself very early in some children—we gave examples of it before. Our inventor adds: "My imagination was strongest at about the age of 25 to 35 (I am now 45 years old). After that time it seems to me that the remainder of life is good only for producing less important conceptions, forming a natural consequence of the principal conceptions born of the period of youth."