See, Walpole gets it.

[mrissa]

When I was reading Richard Holmes's The Age of Wonder, he had this bit from Horace Walpole about hot air balloons that seemed like the plight of the near-future science fiction writer in a nutshell, and I meant to put it here and forgot. Here we go:

"How posterity will laugh at us one way or the other! If half a dozen break their necks, and Balloonism is exploded, we shall be called fools for having imagined it could be brought to use. If it should be turned to account, we shall be ridiculed for having doubted."