“As [Hugo] Gernsback became wealthy, he cultivated the air of a bon vivant, packaging himself as adroitly as he packaged his crystal sets by dressing in bespoke suits and silk ties. But he inevitably struck people as odd, rude, self-centered, and even callous. On train trips to Chicago to pick up parts for his company, he would stop off in Cleveland to visit his seven-year-old cousin, Hildegarde. The entrepreneur would terrify the girl by launching into winding soliloquies about a society in which domed cities in orbit, robot doctors, and retirement colonies on Mars were commonplace. (Meanwhile, horse-drawn carts were still plying the streets outside.) If a ringing telephone interrupted him in mid reverie, he would raise na admonishing finger and say to his cousin in his bristling Germanic accept, ‘Hildegarde, fix your hair. It won’t be long before the caller can see your face over the wires.'”
~Steve Silberman, NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity
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