“Yes, I loved that pigeon, I loved her as a man loves a woman, and she loved me." Near the end of his working life, Nikola Tesla developed a daily routine to feed the pigeons outside his New York hotel. But there was one pigeon, that stirred him the most: "a beautiful bird, pure white with light gray tips on its wings; that one was different. It was a female. No matter where I was, that pigeon would find me; when I wanted her I had only to wish and call her and she would come flying to me. She understood me and I understood her. If she needed me, nothing else mattered. As long as I had her, there was a purpose in my life. Then one night she flew into my room, I knew she wanted to tell me—she was dying. And then, as I got her message, there came a light from her eyes—it was a real light, a powerful, dazzling, blinding light, a light more intense than I had ever produced by the most powerful lamps in my laboratory. When that pigeon died, something went out of my life. Up to that time I knew with a certainty that I would complete my work, no matter how ambitious my program, but when that something went out of my life I knew my life’s work was finished.”
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