The Islanders

Начало книги

I find it ironic that I should be invited to write a few introductory words to this book, as I know as little about the subject as it is possible to know. However, having always maintained that what one feels is more important than what one knows, let me begin.

Here is a book about islands and islanders, full of information and facts, a great deal I knew nothing about, and even more on which I had opinions without substance. People too: some of them I knew personally, or had heard about, and now rather late in the day have learned something about them. There is so much out there, so many islands to discover, while I am familiar with but one of them. I was born on the island where I live now and where I am writing these words, I have never stepped off the island, and I expect never to do so before I die. If this were a book only about my home island I should be uniquely equipped to introduce it, but for quite other reasons I would then not agree to do so.

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