Connectors know people—lots of people. Mavens know about things. They know, or find out first, what is going on. Connectors, says Gladwell, need mavens to tell them what to buzz about.

I have the sneaking suspicion that he has already taken a decision about this.

All must look magical in the silence of the stars, when the moon ghostens in the trees, and owls float noiselessly about or pass the time of night in their long melopy, from hollybush to old Scotch fir, their cries reechoing from the turrets of the house and sounding on the lake.

The reader cannot but judge of the irksomeness of this situation to a mind like mine, in being daily exposed to new hardships and impositions, after having seen many better days, and been as it were, in a state of freedom and plenty; added to which, every part of the world I had hitherto been in, seemed to me a paradise in comparison of the West Indies.