Preface 
seems to me, truly representative of a type once 
very important in England’s life: the type that 
kept the country steady during all the upheavals 
of the last hundred and fifty years. Modern 
science is at last dislodging even English farmers, 
perhaps; yet there is good ground for expecting 
that the national temper will presently strengthen 
itself in modern science and make more John 
Smiths. 
Similar conclusions have been reached in 
another way. During the completion of these 
chapters a notable change came over my attitude 
towards their subject. For whereas, at the start, 
it seemed that they were justified by something 
exceptional in John Smith, on the other. hand, 
before the end was reached I realised that the 
exceptional thing was my intimacy with such a 
man, allowing me to see a little inside him, rather 
than in any great difference between him and his 
fellows. I knew him better than I knew them— 
that was all. In the course of many years I 
must have met dozens of men who would have 
been as good to know, if only I had happened to 
be equally well acquainted with them. 
This does not at all mean that John Smith was 
less worthy of attention than I had thought; on 
the contrary, it makes him seem more and more 
worthy. Instead of being a rarity he was a type; 
instead of displaying singular and therefore unim- 
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