I can acknowledge my obligation to Michael Angelo for the Sistine ceiling, but that doesn’t cancel my indebtedness by any means.  It took me fifteen years to find the Cumaean Sibyl.  I had seen a reproduction of this lady in some book, and had become much interested in her generous physique, her brawny arms, her wide-spreading toes, and her look of concentration as she delves into the mysteries of the massive volume before her.  Naturally I became curious as to the original, and wondered if I should ever meet her face to face.  Then one day I was lying on my back on a wooden bench in the Sistine Chapel, having duly apologized for my violation of the conventions, when, wonder of wonders, there was the Cumaean Sibyl in full glory right before my eyes, and the quest of all those years was ended in triumph.  True, the Sibyl does not compare in greatness with the “Creation of Adam” in one of the central panels, but for all that I was glad to have her definitely localized.

I have never got it clearly figured out just how the letters of the alphabet were evolved, nor who did the work, but I go right on using them as if I had evolved them myself.  They seem to be my own personal property, and I jostle them about quite careless of the fact that some one gave them to me.  I can’t see how I could get on without them, and yet I have never admitted any obligation to their author.  The same is true of the digits.  I make constant use of them, and sometimes even abuse them, as if I had a clear title to them.  I have often wondered who worked out the table of logarithms, and have thought how much more agreeable life has been for many people because of his work.  I know my own debt to him is large, and I dare say many others have a like feeling.  Even the eighth-grade boys in the Castle Road school, London, share this feeling, doubtless, for in a test in arithmetic that I saw there I noted that in four of the twelve problems set for solution they had permission to use their table of logarithms.  They probably got home earlier for supper by their use of this table.

I hereby make my humble apologies to Mr. Thomas A. Edison for my thoughtlessness in not writing to him before this to thank him for his many acts of kindness to me.  I have been exceedingly careless in the matter.  I owe him for the comfort and convenience of this beautiful electric light, and yet have never mentioned the matter to him.  He has a right to think me an ingrate.  I have been so busy enjoying the gifts he has sent me that I have been negligent of the giver.  As I think of all my debts to scientists, inventors, artists, poets, and statesmen, and consider how impossible it is for me to pay all my debts to all these, try as I may, I begin to see how difficult it was for Diogenes to find a man who paid all his debts in full.  Hence, the lantern.