PREFACE
A few years ago it occurred to me that there were living on the same planet and at the same time as myself some interesting people whom I had never seen and did not know so much about as I should. Since they or I might die at any moment, I determined not to delay longer. So I prepared a list of twelve men who seemed to me most worth knowing, and then I set out to see them; not with the hope of becoming personally acquainted with them or even with the object of interviewing them, but chiefly to satisfy myself that they really existed. One does not go to Switzerland to find out how high the Alps are or how they look. The traveler can get their altitude from Baedeker and their appearance from photographs, but if he is to talk about them with any sense of self-confidence he must have come within hailing distance of the mountains themselves. It is sufficient
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