'Barber John Paton remembered that the "Boys' Friend" "ran a serial which was an enormously exciting tale of Alba's oppression of the Netherlands, and gave as its source, Motley's 'Rise of the Dutch Republic'". He borrowed it from the public library and, with guidance from a helpful adult, also read J.R. Green, Macaulay, Prescott, Grote, and even Mommsen's multi-volume History of Rome by age fourteen. "There must have been, of course, enormous gaps in my understanding of what I poured into the rag bag that was my mind, particularly from the bigger works," he conceded, "but at least I sensed the important thing, the immense sweep and variety and the continuity of the historical process".'