Free Tesla: The Life and Times of an Electric Messiah by Nigel Cawthorne

Long Island.
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    Fame, But No Fortune
    With Tesla’s he lp, Thomas Martin p ublished The Inventions, Researches and Writings of Nikola Tesla in 1894. But Tesla kept giving copies away free. Both Martin and the Johnsons were worried that Tesla made no effort to make money out of his work and suggested that he should, at least, tell the newspapers about taking photographs under phosphorescent light so he would get the credit. Meanwhile, Martin had to lend Tesla money from his share of the book – money that Tesla would never repay.
    The University of Nebraska offered Tesla an honorary doctorate, but this was considered too trifling an accolade for the great inventor. Instead, Johnson organized an honorary doctorate from Columbia. One from Yale soon followed.
    To boost his fame, Martin arranged for Tesla to have his voice recorded on a phonograph, an honour already bestowed on the Australian opera singer Nellie Melba (1861 – 1931) and Sarah Bernhardt. He also got Tesla to sit for a sculptor and do interviews with the mainstream media. Journalists flocked around. Joseph Pulitzer (1847 – 1911) – who later established the Pulitzer prizes but was then publisher of the New York World – sent a young reporter named Arthur Brisbane (1864 – 1936) to interview Tesla in one of his favourite haunts, Delmonico’s Restaurant where, for many years, he ate every night. Brisbane noted the famous restaurateur lowered his voice at the mention of Tesla’s name. According to Brisbane, Charles Delmonico said in hushed tones:
    That Tesla can do anything. We managed to make him play pool one night. He had never played, but he had watched us for a little while. He was very indignant when he found that we meant to give him 15 points. But it didn’t matter much, for he beat us all even and got all the money. There are just a few of us who play for 25 cents, so it wasn’t the money we cared about, but the way he studied out pool in his head, and then beat us, after we had practised for years, surprised us .
    Brisbane said he found that Tesla ‘stoops – most men do when they have no peacock blood in them. He lives inside of himself. He takes a profound interest in his own work.’ However, the engraving that accompanied the article famously showed Tesla erect and unbowed.
    When asked what it was like to subject himself to such huge voltages, Tesla said: ‘I admit that I was somewhat alarmed when I began these experiments, but after I understood the principles, I could proceed in an unalarmed manner.’
    Later he explained the spectacle presented when he was connected to an AC voltage of two-and-a-half million volts. It was, Tesla said:
    â€¦a sight marvellous and unforgettable. One sees the experimenter standing on a big sheet of fierce, blinding flame, his whole body enveloped in a mass of phosphorescent wriggling streamers like the tentacles of an octopus. Bundles of light stick out from his spine. As he stretches out the arms, thus forcing the electric fluid outwardly, roaring tongues of fire leap from his fingertips. Objects in his vicinity bristle with rays, emit musical notes, glow, grow hot. He is the centre of still more curious actions, which are invisible. At each throb of the electric force myriads of minute projectiles are shot off from him with such velocities as to pass through the adjoining walls. He is in turn being violently bombarded by the surrounding air and dust. He experiences sensations which are indescribable.
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    Vow of Chastity
    Tesla also became a close friend of society architect Stanford White, designer of Madison Square Garden, the Washington Memorial Arch and the New York Herald Building. They met in 1891 when piano virtuoso Ignacy Paderewski (1860 – 1941) played at Madison Square Garden for five nights. White even put Tesla up at his club, The Players, which became one of the inventor’s favourite haunts. But it was a strange friendship. While