Nikola Tesla Books
Deep in the background of my brain there lay a solution which, however, I was not yet able to express. One afternoon (in the month of February 1882, Author's Note), which is still vividly alive in my memory, I was walking with a friend (his name was Szigeti, [A/N]) in the city park and reciting verses. At that time I knew entire books by heart. One of them was Goethe's "Faust". The sun was setting and I recalled the famous passage (quoted undoubtedly in the original, [A/N]):
The glow retreats, done is the day of toil;
It yonder hastes, new fields of life exploring;Ah, that no wing can lift me from the soil
Upon its track to follow, follow soaring!A glorious dream! though now the glories fade.
Alas! the wings that lift the mind no aid
Of wings to lift the body can bequeath me.When I spoke these words in a moment of inspiration, the idea appeared like a flash of lightning, and the long-sought truth was revealed in an instant. With a stick I drew in the sand the plans that I showed six years later in my lecture before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, and my friend understood them completely. The images I saw were especially sharp and clear, and had the solidity of stone or metal to such a degree that I said to him: "Look here at my motor; see how I shall make it rotate in the opposite direction!" I cannot describe my excitement more precisely. Pygmalion could not have been more deeply moved when he noticed that his statue had begun to live. I would give a thousand secrets of nature that I might discover by chance for this single one that I wrested from her.
With this idea, on the recommendation of his chief and friend Puskas, Tesla went to Paris in the hope of realizing his invention in practice. In Paris he entered the service of Edison's Continental Company, whose task was to build direct-current power stations in Europe. This company was connected with Edison's company in New York and was under his control.
