“One day he followed Carlyle from his house, and across the Bridge into Battersea Park. Mr. Allingham was with him. Presently the two sat down together on one of the Park seats. No one was about, and the couple of old gentlemen were in no way occupied except with their own thoughts. My young friend nervously watched them as they sat, wondering how near he might venture. At last he mustered up courage enough to walk softly behind Mr. Allingham, and to say to him almost in a whisper: “‘Mr. Allingham, do you think Mr. Carlyle would allow me to shake hands with him?’ “‘Mr. Carlyle,’ said Mr. Allingham, ‘here is a young man who wishes to speak to you.’ “Carlyle, roused from his reverie, stood up facing the young student almost savagely, and said very sharply: “‘Who are you, and what do you want?’ “The brusqueness of the challenge drove the youth’s shyness away—he answered jestingly: “‘I’m a Black Brunswicker from Birmingham.’ “Carlyle’s attitude completely changed. He laughed, and repeated: “‘A Black Brunswicker from Birmingham!’ Then he added: ‘Tell us who you are, and all about you.’ “This led to my friend giving Carlyle his name and a good deal of his history. The Sage asked him many questions with evident interest and kindly intention, and they were about to part when Carlyle not only shook hands with his admirer, but gave him his blessing, putting a hand on his head and saying with solemn earnestness: “‘May the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac go with the lad!’“ We were sitting one evening under the electric light, steadily burning in the Swan lamps. I asked Sir Joseph how he came to think of devising the lamp which has made his name familiar all over the world. So complicated a topic for the non-expert is the electric light that I am glad not to have to rely upon memory. Sir Joseph kindly undertook to put the matter in writing for me, and here is the narrative in his own words: “The question you have put to me—although in itself simple—is not easy to answer. The genesis of ideas is often a puzzling matter, and it is so to a considerable extent in the case of my electric lamp. The germ was, I believe, implanted by a lecture on electric lighting that I heard when I was about seventeen. That was in 1845. “The lecturer was W. E. Staite, one of the first inventors of a mechanically-regulated electric lamp. He illustrated his discourse by brilliant experiments, and was confident in his prediction that electric light would shortly be used for lighthouse illumination. Mr. Staite in his lecture also slightly touched on the production of small electric lights, suitable for house-lighting, and he described and showed how much lighting could be done by electrically heating a wire of Iridium. The experiment he showed to illustrate this point was simply the heating to a white heat a short piece of iridium wire stretched nakedly in the air between two conducting pillars.