They tried. [ He raises his arms a little; it has a moderating effect. ] I don't know if they ever actually got them all. That's the trouble: you can never know what you're missing. [ True of his homeland especially, he thinks. ]

The striving can be a gain in itself, though. My father took me once, when I was little, and the shelves were twice my height. [ He hadn't thought of it in a while. ]