There are many books about men of action—soldiers, sailors, and explorers—but it is not so easy to find any simple account of men who have used their minds and their pens, rather than the sword, in the work for the betterment of their country to which they have devoted their lives. We have chosen men who are not actually connected with one another in any way. But although they lived in different lands and in different centuries, they are linked by the same qualities; the same strain runs through them all of fearlessness, moral courage, and independence of character. Most of them were accounted rebels in their day, but the rebel of one century is often the hero of the next. 

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