It Would Take Too Long

Another quotation from Wind in the Willows, this one from Chapter Four. This is after Mole got lost in the dreaded Wild Wood, and was found by Rat. Now Mole and Rat are safe at Badger’s underground home, eating and talking:

. . . it was that regrettable sort of conversation that results from talking with your mouth full. The Badger did not mind that sort of thing at all, nor did he take any notice of elbows on the table, or everybody speaking at once. As he did not go into Society himself, he had got an idea that these things belonged to the things that didn’t really matter. (We know of couse that he was wrong, and took too narrow a view; because they do matter very much, though it would take too long to explain why.)