I Have Always Believed That The Material

Yet, Like The Sea And The Gallows, London Refuses Nobody.

What Captivity Has Been To The Jews, Exile Has Been To The Irish. For Us, The Romance Of Our Native Land Begins Only After We Have Left Home; It Is Really Only With Other People That We Become Irishmen.

I Think Biography Can Be More Personal Than Fiction, And Certainly Can Be More Expressive.

And The Smell Of The Library Was Always The Same - The Musty Odour Of Old Clothes Mixed With The Keener Scent Of Unwashed Bodies, Creating What The Chief Librarian Had Once Described As 'the Steam Of The Social Soup.'

There Is A Word In Old English Which Belongs Wholly To That Civilization - "dustsceawung," Meaning Contemplation Of Dust. It Is A True Image Of The Anglo-saxon Mind, Or At Least An Echo Of That Consciousness Which Considered Transcience And Loss To Be Part Of The Human Estate; It Was A World In Which Life Was Uncertain And The Principal Diety Was Fate Or Destiny Or "wyrd."