 as among the "rare few science‐fiction [works that] combine a standard science‐fiction theme with a deep human sensitivity".The title is taken from the phrase "Breathes there a man..." in Sir Walter Scott's 1805 poem "The Lay of the Last Minstrel".Asimov said in "Nightfall and Other Stories" (1969), "I resisted the temptation to base a story slavishly on the present until I could think of a way to do so without making myself a minion of the headlines and of topicality.