August 7, 1895 [The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots]

Everyone in the Kinetescope Parlor seemed calm enough. We were all there—it was Pete's birthday, and we wanted to give him a treat. One by one we bent over the peephole. I was intrigued, but I admit I did not have the highest expectations—which suits any five-cent novelty.

Pete yelped, drew sharply away from the peephole as though an invisible rope had pulled him back. Mary, Queen of Scots, had lost her head—but down there in the Kinetescope everyone was also calm, the guards, the executioner, even Mary. They stood there stolidly, she knelt down and stretched her neck, all matter-of-fact, no anticipation, no suspense—not in thirty seconds—and no shock, aside from some slight drawing back by two ladies-in-waiting. But as they bent over, others in the Parlor made their own startled sounds, as though a kennel of small dogs were one by one being poked none too gently. Edison has invented a machine for manufacturing emotions in humans. There's a kind of genius there for which not even the incandescent light bulb could have prepared me.