Quotes / Mobile Maze

Mr Norrell led the other two gentlemen along a passage – a very ordinary passage, thought Mr Segundus, paneled 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 passage 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 [...] 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 on the compass – not east, nor south, nor west, nor north, but somewhere quite different and this was the direction in which he led them.

—Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell