It would help if you had more of what this book was about. Arther Connan Doyle was most famous for Sherlock Holmes. Doyle's style is most like a scientific journal, so if he is going to help us see a period in history, he is going to use detail to do it.
The two sentences I would pick The first sentence of the first paragraph and the first sentence of the second paragraph. If those two turn out to be wrong then I would pick the last one of the second paragraph and the one in the middle of the second paragraph beginning "It was simple, but childlike ... "