'I took Lubbock's List as a guide in my book hunting and persevered until I had acquired and read every single book in Lubbock's "hundred". It took time, of course: it was only after many years that I could happen upon and acquire, secondhand, Grote's "History of Greece". But as I found them, so, doggedly, I set myself to read them, and to puzzle out, as well as I could, why they had acquired the repute in which they stood. It was, at times, hard going; I got little pleasure or profit from Keble's "Christian Year", and, though his gorgeous word tapestry impressed me greatly, little of either from Jeremy Taylor's "Holy Living" and "Holy Dying".'