Tesla

I've been reading a lot about the brilliant but largely forgotten inventer Nikola Tesla, the father of modern electricity. I'm struggling to write about his life but don't know how to tell his story as there are so many--polymath genius, bon vivant of the gilded age, eccentric recluse dying alone and in debt in the New Yorker Hotel in 1942.

In this picture from the end of the 19th century, he controls his equipment in the shadows lighting the bulb held by his friend Samuel Clemens, Mark Twain.

Nikola Tesla was born 150 years ago, a Serb in Smiljan, Croatia. His father was a priest, his mother an extraordinary and loving woman of intelligence and wit.

And so, on a dark winter's night ...

The top of his head was so cold it hurt. He pulled at the down comforter and shivered. He was standing inside Niagara Falls. His body was whipped back and forth by the screaming water, and despite the overwhelming force, he was at peace. Though the sky was still slate black outside he had to get up.

With his eyes still closed he sat up and made an oath. ‘Someday, somehow I will master the Falls.’ He repeated it softly and rocked slightly, enduring the cold.

Niagra was half a world away--and, of course, it simply made no sense--but since he first saw the picture of the Falls, the idea of it burned inside him though he was only 10 years old.

Suddenly something touched his arm and he was so startled he lost his balance and, trailing the bedding behind him, fell to the floor in a dull, down-cushioned thump. His mother, usually silent, laughed out loud.

“You look like a drunken bride,” she said.