"the past flares to life like a match in the darkness"

To me every trip to a library or archive is like a small detective story. There are always little moments on such trips when the past flares to life like a match in the darkness. On one visit to the Chicago Historical Society, I found the actual notes that Prendergast sent to Alfred Trude. I saw how deeply the pencil dug into the paper.

Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America (New York: Vintage Books, 2004), p. 396.