"It is not by the direct method of a scrupulous narration that the explorer of the past can hope to depict [an epoch]....If he is wise, he must adopt a subtler strategy.  He will attack his subject in unexpected places; he will fall upon the flank, or rear; he will shoot a sudden revealing searchlight into obscure recesses, hitherto undivined.  He will row out over that great ocean of material, and lower down into it, here and there, a little bucket, which will bring up to the light of day some characteristic specimen, from those far depths, to be examined with a careful curiousity."


                                                  -Lytton Strachey, EMINENT VICTORIANS