'The [reference room of the public library] was almost airless, catarrhal from the fumes of the coke-stove, musty and dusty from the half-mouldering, out-of-date sets of "The Encyclopedia Britannica" and the "Dictionary of National Biography". We took down pages and pages of what, in the end, proved to be quite useless notes on the lives of Gustavus Adolphus and Richelieu...'