Bob Trevelyan was, I think, the most bookish person that I have ever known. What is in books appeared to him interesting, whereas what is only real life was negligible. Like all the family, he had a minute knowledge of the strategy and tactics concerned in all the great battles of the world, so far as these appear in reputable books of history. But I was staying with him during the crisis of the battle of the Marne, and as it was Sunday we could only get a newspaper by walking two miles. He did not think the battle sufficiently interesting to be worth it, because battles in mere newspapers are vulgar. I once devised a test question which I put to many people to discover whether they were pessimists. The question was: ‘If you had the power to destroy the world, would you do so?’ I put the question to him in the presence of his wife and child, and he replied: ‘What? Destroy my library? – Never!’

(Bertrand Russell, Autobiography – ein Buch, das mir ein Kurs der Teaching Company empfohlen hat, auf die wiederum ich durch diese Seite aufmerksam geworden bin: Dafür an dieser Stelle vielen Dank!)