Nikola Tesla Books
CHAPTER SIX My conclusions about power transmission caused my interest to falter. I felt I had read too much about Nikola Tesla and badly wanted to get back to my old routine. But he would not lie down so easily; after a day my mood of listlessness faded and, picking up one of the biographies, I began to read. Nikola Tesla was born on July 9, 1856, in the village of Smiljan, Croatia. The year of his birth was shared with Freud, Woodrow Wilson, Oscar Wilde and Bernard Shaw. In the same year, Burton and Speke set out to find the source of the Nile, the Treaty of Paris brought the Crimean War to an end and James Buchanan was elected President of the United States. Few of these events would have reached the ears of Tesla's father, Milutin, who acted as a pastor in the Serbian Orthodox Church, or to his mother, Djouka, who could not even read although she possessed the gift of languages. The family consisted of five children and for the first years of his life the sickly, introspective Nikola lived under the shadow of an older brother Dane. Dane, seven years older than Nikola, was considered by the family to be their greatest gift - a genius: so it was particularly tragic when he suffered a serious fall. The boy lay ill for several days and Nikola was moved to a neighbour's house, for there were rumours that he had pushed his elder brother down the cellar steps. Dane died and in Nikola was born the determination to excel the genius of his departed brother. Such a burden can become unbearable to a sensitive child. Another pastor's son, Vincent Van Gogh, grew up in the shadow of a dead brother, also named Vincent, who had been destined for great things. In his psychological study of the painter, Stranger on the Earth, A.J. Lubin tells how this brother became an obsession in Van Gogh's life, which 58
