8                                 Kenneth M. Swezey

often even signed his letters "Nikola." The nicknames came from
"Luka Filipov," Montenegrin hero of a poem Johnson had helped
him translate into English.

When Tesla referred in these letters to "millionaires", he was
continuing a private joke between himself and the Joiinsons, who
tried to keep him supplied with wealthy friends in the hope they
might finance his inventions. In .March, 1899, because of one who
did, he moved from the Gerlach to the old Waldorf-Astoria.

Tesla's hypersensitivity to the distress of others is evident in a
letter concerning an illness of Kipling: "I cannot tell you how-
anxious I am. ... I have worked myself into a pitch of excitement
and ha\'e not slept two nights, being unable to get him off my
mind."

Matters discussed in the correspondence include personal and
social affairs, wireless telegraphy, Tesla's radio-controlled boat
of 1898 (forerunner of the guided missile), and transmission of
power without wires. One scries of letters concerns Tesla's long
article, "The Problem of Increasing Human Energy," which ap¬
peared in the June, 1900, issue of The Century Magazine.

Letters came farther apart as the men grew older, but Tesla's
affection never wavered. His last message was a telegram:

YOU ARE ALWAYS IN i\lY THOUGHTS LUKA MY DEAR FRIEND. MAY
THE LORD PRESERVE YOU AND IN THE NEW YEAR BESTOW^ UPON YOU
HIS MOST DESIRED BLESSINGS-YOUR NIKOLA.