My mind is like a racing engine, tearing itself to pieces because it is not connected up with the work for which it was built. Life is commonplace; the papers are sterile; audacity and romance seem to have passed forever from the criminal world. Can you ask me, then, whether I am ready to look into any new problem, however trivial it may prove?
Arthur Conan Doyle, The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Vol 2
audacity, boredom, commonplace, criminals, engine, life, romance, sherlock-holmes, sterile