When one of my Oxford friends called me on a November night to pass on the mournful news of Sir Isaiah Berlin's death, I only half believed. Next morning the Polish newspapers brought the same sad information. While going over the headlines announcing the passing away of ‘one of the giants of our century’ , I could not help thinking how exceptionally privileged I had been, having corresponded with Sir Isaiah for years and having met him many times during my stays on scholarships in Oxford. I also reflected upon the peculiarity of official obituaries, which hardly ever reveal the deepest truth about the deceased. Though I am fully aware of the intellectual range of Sir Isaiah's achievement, I shall remember him as one of the most generous and warmest persons I have ever met. Just imagine the intellectual ‘giant of our century’ writing the following words to an unknown Polish graduate student (at the end of a six-page letter):

I needed only to show the letter to Dr Zbigniew Pełczyński, then visiting Poland, to be accepted for a two-month stay at St John's under the Oxford Colleges Hospitality Scheme. I can still recollect in detail the first meeting at All Souls. How could I expect then that there were going to be over twenty of them? I introduced myself (in a trembling voice) to the porter, who made a short phone call and told me to wait. In a moment an elderly gentleman in a brown three-piece suit and a brown hat rushed towards the lodge especially to meet me. I kept glancing at the face so familiar to me from the books’ covers and suddenly felt completely unreal.