It was then that the shock of the past reached out and jabbed me in the ribs. They were as alive as I am; why can’t I touch them? Grieved, I had to stuff my fingers in my mouth, fish out my handkerchief and do what a novelist has to do: unfreeze antique feeling, unlock the emotion stored and packed tight in paper, brick and stone.

Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self-…, loc. 1148