Wonder.

Mr Norrell led the other two gentlemen along a passage -- a very ordinary passage, thought Mr Segundus, panelled and floored with well-polished oak, and smelling of beeswax; then there was a staircase, or perhaps only three or four steps; and then another passage where the air was somewhat colder and the floor was good York stone: all entirely unremarkable.  (Unless the second passgae had come before the staircase or steps?  Or had there in truth been a staircase at all?)  Mr Segundus was one of those happy gentlemen who can always say whether they face north or south, east or west.  It was not a talent he took any particular pride in -- it was as natural to him as knowing that his head still stood upon his shoulders -- but in Mr Norrell's house his gift deserted him.  He could never afterwards picture the sequence of passageways and rooms through which they had passed, nor quite decide how long they had taken to reach the library.  And he could not tell the direction; it seemed to him as if Mr Norrell had discovered some fifth point of the compass -- not east, nor south, nor west, nor north, but somewhere quite different and this was the direction in which he had led them.  Mr Honeyfoot, on the other hand, did not appear to notice anything odd.

The library was perhaps a little smaller than the drawing room they had just quitted.  There was a noble fire in the hearth and all was comfort and quiet.  Yet once again the light within the room did not seem to accord with the three tall, twelve-paned windows, so that once again Mr Segundus was made uncomfortable by a persistent feeling that there ought to have been other candles in the room, other windows, or another fire to account for the light.  What windows there were looked out upon a wide expanse of dusky English rain so that Mr Segundus could not make out the view nor guess where in the house they stood.

The room was not empty; there was a man sitting at a table who rose as they entered, and whom Mr Norrell briefly declared to be Childermass, his man of business.

Mr Honeyfoot and Mr Segundus, being magicians themselves, had not needed to be told that the library of Hurtfew Abbey was dearer to its possessor than all his other riches; and they were not surprised to discover that Mr Norrell had constructed a beautiful jewel box to house his heart's treasure.  The bookcases which lined the walls of the room were built of English woods and resembled Gothic arches laden with cravings.  There were carvings of leaves (dried and twisted leaves, as if the season the artist had intended to represent were autumn), carvings of intertwining roots and branches, carvings of berries and ivy -- all wonderfully done.  But the wonder of the bookcases was nothing to the wonder of the books.

Suzanna Clarke, from Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell