Explore "The Devil's Guard" by Talbot Mundy on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Some men yearn to become bishops; probably that yearning makes them put their utmost into life, which is the only way to extract one's share of satisfaction. I have met, and known, and liked men who could not resist the lure of a stagedoor. One of my respected friends will cross the world to hunt for a rare butterfly in fever swamps. And I know a woman whose health, youth, popularity and family combined can not prevent her from sailing the ocean alone in a thirty-foot sloop for weeks at a time when certain impulses, as unexplainable as life itself, assert their recurring spell. I don't believe it matters which enthusiasm we adopt, provided we have one and drive it, or let it drive us, for all it and we are worth.
The same lure that had beckoned Rait and Mordecai, had stirred whatever it is that differentiates us men from mushrooms, in Chullunder Ghose, Narayan Singh, Grim and me. Not one of us--not even Benjamin, who unlocked a secret door for us even remotely guessed what lay ahead. We simply listened to an icy siren-song blown to us over the Roof of the World, and responded because there would have been no peace within us otherwise.