It was from James
Maradick and it was strangely encouraging--now at this period of yawning
pits from whose blackness he so resolutely turned away.
It asked him to go with Maradick as his guest to some Club dinner. Then it
went on.... "You know, Westcott, we don't meet as often as we should. Like
ships in the night, we signal every now and again and then pass. But I am
quite sure that we have plenty to say to one another. Once or twice--you
remember that party when I gassed about Cornwall?--we have nearly said it,
but something has always prevented. I remember that you divided the world
once in a fit of youthful confidence, into Explorers and Stay-at-homes.
Well, those words will do as well as any others to describe the great
dividing line. At any rate, you're an Explorer and you're trying to get on
terms with the Stay-at-homes, and I'm a Stay-at-home and I'm trying to get
on terms with the Explorers and that's why we're both so uncomfortable. The
only happy people, take my word for it, are those who know the kind of
thing they are--Explorers or Stay-at-homes, and just stick at that and shut
their eyes tight to the other kind of people--_il n'existe pas_, that other
world. Those are the happy people, and, after all most people are like
that. But we, you and I, are uncomfortably conscious of the other
Party--want to know them, in fact, want them to receive us.
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