Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1896-06-06

|
loneliness OF his laboratory, who had
strayed go high up into untraveled realms
OF knowledge that there were few, perhaps
nene; to share with him in fun the delight
OF mis- discoveries. So far had he strayed
| from the beaten ways of men that he seemed
! almost to belong to another race
| Inventors Should Not Marry.
DO you believe in marriage, Mr.. Tesla,
Tor persons of artistic temperament" l
| asked.
| For an artist, yes; for a musician, yes;
| for writer, yes, but for an inventor, no.
| The first three must gain inspiration from
| wonians influence and lie led by her love
10 inner achievement, but an inventor has
i SO intense a nature with SO much Ia il of
wilu, passionate quality, that in giving
himself to a woman he might love, he
would give everything, and so take every
| thing from his chosen field. do not think
you can name many great inventions tina;
| nave been made by married men" He
paused moment and then added, with d
shaoe OF pathos in his tone: rs a pity
TOO, for sometimes We feel SO lonely
The amount Of work Mr.. Tesla does in a
| day, does every day, is simply prodigious
IL Is literally true that his life is passed in
continuous labor in the laboratory with oc-
/ caslonal intervals for food and sleep, and
after working all day long from o'clock
IN the morning till O'Clock at night he
oltcn mas his dinner brought TO the labora-
! tory and continues to work until IL or u
| Twice IN the last TWO years he has been 10
th.ater. On very, very rare occasions
when ne could not avoid it, he has needed
some social call ana enjoyed it, too as hc
| ADMITS, although the thought of going to a
reception or evening gathering fills him
WIN dlsmay In advance. one of his few
| FORMATIONS Is the half hour he spends every
| evening at the cafe where We met, ex-
changing pleasant word with friends he
! finds there.
nat do you think about sleep?" | ask
cd. Is 1t wise for a man to deny himself
! ana get along with a few hours steep d
| Gay 50 as 10 do more work."
Tesla shook his head. THAT is a great
mistake, L an convinced. A man is given
/ just SO many hours to be awake and The
| FEWER OF these he uses up each day the
| more days II will take TO use them up.
| that is, the longer he will live / believe
| that man might live 200 years if he would
! sleep most of The lime. That is why
! negroes often live TO advanced old age be-
cause ,hat f fhey sleep SO much Do You know
| that Gladstone sleeps seventeen hours
every day; that is why his faculties arr
sun unimpaired in spite OF his great aao.
Inc proper way 10 economic life is TO
| steep every moment that il is not necessary
or desirable that you should be awake.
! DO do II myself? No, but here. as in
many other >hings, l am far from being a
| model
AS young man in his native land Of
! Montenegro, Tesla was famous for unusu-
| al bodily strength, overcoming all his com
races with little effort in wrestling bou:s
anu ieats OF prowess Even now, despite
the neglect CT his muscles, he is a man Of
remarkable stature and physical force
The Tesla Family.
AS the waiter was bringing some things
| that had been ordered remarked the nU-
ency with which Mr.. Tesla spoke French
and asked him how many languages he
| knew.
Not very many" he said, six, or seven.
or eight; but my father was a great lin
! gust; he spoke eighteen languages. Be
/ Ia a rts. L.. YI,r,,,,
| tician.'
! 1 asked Mr.. Tesla about the members of
! his family still living. ana he told me that
| he had three sisters in SeTvia, for whom he
| has the most profound affection. They
were all married, according 10 the custom
| of the country, at the early age OF sixteen
| or seventeen, which, he thinks, great
mistake.
You have the right IDEAS" he said.
about that in America. When girls marry
at such an early age they are old women
| at thirty-five.'
! DO your sisters know" asked "of the
! great success you have made in this coun-
try and the honors that have come to
your
Yes" said Tesla, they know, and they
| worship me; they make SO much of what
have done because they do not understand
| it. 1 would give anything to have them
| here with me, but they would not leave
their country. They could not live away
| from It,.
His noyhood Days.
| The same tender light beamed into Tes-
| las eyes as he spoke Of his far-away
| home, and presently he began to speak in
| a lower tone, telling of his boyhcod days in
| Montenegro. / was most impressed by his
| telling how, while a student at the univer-
| sity, he nearly died with an attack of Ash
| attic cholera.
| In that year." he said, 1.-The scourge was
| wiping out whole villages In the little
| town where my family lived, with a popuia-
,
died in a single day. My father sent me
| message not to come home, but, needless
of his warning, l started and made the
| journey on foot. AS passed through a lit
tie place not far from my destination a
brght-eyed girl who fond of me
| brought me bowl filled with Sleeps
cream, which we regarded as great Cell
cacy. In drinking this 1 think l absorbed
| the germs of the disease, for few hours
| later, when 1 had scarcely reached my
| home, / was writhing on the floor in the
| first tortures Of the plague. Then turned
| livid and blue. and the fortunes L suffered
/ are beyond description. II is a miracle
| that l lived, for in those countries there is
| little relief for sufferers of cholera. For
nine months / was an invalid, but finally
| got strong and we'll. 1 passed close to
| death that time, just l did today. /
don't like the thought of death. 1t seems
| hard to give up ones work SO soon.
Views About the Future Life.
And the future life?" 1 ventured
! All, liIdl Is aHOl1teT story. some Ifne
1 will tell you my views about the future
life; but do you know this that it is pos
| sible to make plausible demonstration of
your future existence and mine by labora-
| tory experiments"
| Really" l said.
| Yes; 1t rests on study of cellular or
| ganisms, the point being that each ele-
mentary cell which has ever entered into
| q certain combination, say to represent
you or me any other individual has the
| consciousness of that fact. as seems to he
shown, and preserves the tendency to
| group itself or reunite itself at any future
time with the other cells, which have been
associated with it previously. So 1t all comes
down to the question of probability. There
! is a certain formula for each individual
one for you, one for ME, one for every
| body else. If the atoms that compose that
| formula, dissipated at your death or mine,
| ever again in infinite time find themselves
| together or near one another, men they
would rush together before and accord
/ ing to the unvarying law of cause and
| effect, the same result will follow their re-
1 fNl1