Here’s Lewis (a very successful man by worldly measures) in a speech given to young men in the era finishing university was to begin “adult” life:
And the prophecy I make is this. To nine out of ten of you the choice which could lead to scoundrelism will come, when it does come, in no very dramatic colours. Obviously bad men, obviously threatening or bribing, will almost certainly not appear. Over a drink, or a cup of coffee, disguised as triviality and sandwiched between two jokes, from the lips of a man, or woman, whom you have recently been getting to know rather better and whom you hope to know better still–just at the moment when you are most anxious not to appear crude, or naif or a prig – the hint will come. It will be the hint of something which the public, the ignorant, romantic public, would never understand: something which even the outsiders in your own profession are apt to make a fuss about: but something, says your new friend, which “we” – and at the word “we” you try not to blush for mere pleasure – something “we always do.”
And you will be drawn in, if you are drawn in, not by desire for gain or ease, but simply because at that moment, when the cup was so near your lips, you cannot bear to be thrust back again into the cold outer world. It would be so terrible to see the other man’s face – that genial, confidential, delightfully sophisticated face – turn suddenly cold and contemptuous, to know that you had been tried for the Inner Ring and rejected. And then, if you are drawn in, next week it will be something a little further from the rules, and next year something further still, but all in the jolliest, friendliest spirit. It may end in a crash, a scandal, and penal servitude; it may end in millions, a peerage and giving the prizes at your old school. But you will be a scoundrel.
Note: The above is true for many types of people, but for regular readers of text-intensive websites, especially, there is the old lure of knowledge. Knowledge is hardly concentrated in books. On the one hand, you may wish to expose the truth and its enemies, but how can you uncover that truth without getting to know the men who can tell you about it?
My main purpose in this address is simply to convince you that this desire is one of the great permanent mainsprings of human action. It is one of the factors which go to make up the world as we know it – this whole pell-mell of struggle, competition, confusion, graft, disappointment and advertisement, and if it is one of the permanent mainsprings then you may be quite sure of this. Unless you take measures to prevent it, this desire is going to be one of the chief motives of your life, from the first day on which you enter your profession until the day when you are too old to care. That will be the natural thing – the life that will come to you of its own accord. Any other kind of life, if you lead it, will be the result of conscious and continuous effort. If you do nothing about it, if you drift with the stream, you will in fact be an “inner ringer.” I don’t say you’ll be a successful one; that’s as may be. But whether by pining and moping outside Rings that you can never enter, or by passing triumphantly further and further in–one way or the other you will be that kind of man.
I have already made it fairly clear that I think it better for you not to be that kind of man.
It’s about the secrecy itself:
The quest of the Inner Ring will break your hearts unless you break it. But if you break it, a surprising result will follow.
If in your working hours you make the work your end, you will presently find yourself all unawares inside the only circle in your profession that really matters. You will be one of the sound craftsmen, and other sound craftsmen will know it. This group of craftsmen will by no means coincide with the Inner Ring or the Important People or the People in the Know. It will not shape that professional policy or work up that professional influence which fights for the profession as a whole against the public: nor will it lead to those periodic scandals and crises which the Inner Ring produces. But it will do those things which that profession exists to do and will in the long run be responsible for all the respect which that profession in fact enjoys and which the speeches and advertisements cannot maintain.
And if in your spare time you consort simply with the people you like, you will again find that you have come unawares to a real inside: that you are indeed snug and safe at the centre of something which, seen from without, would look exactly like an Inner Ring. But the difference is that the secrecy is accidental, and its exclusiveness a by-product, and no one was led thither by the lure of the esoteric: for it is only four or five people who like one another meeting to do things that they like. This is friendship. Aristotle placed it among the virtues. It causes perhaps half of all the happiness in the world, and no Inner Ring can ever have it.
Now, here is Rabbi Yosef Shaul Nathanson in Divrei Shaul on Re’eh:
בספרי בסתר לאמר. מלמד שאין אומרים דבריהם אלא בסתר וכן הוא אומר בנשף בערב יום אבל דברי תורה אין נאמרים אלא בפרהסיא וכן הוא אומר חכמות בחוץ תרונה. הכוונה לפענ”ד ע”פ מה שאמרתי בילדותי ממש הא דאמר שלמה המלך ע”ה בני אם יפתוך חטאים אל תאבה אם יאמרו לכה אתנו נארבה לדם נצפנה לנקי חנם לא תלך אתם וגו’ חכמות בחוץ תרונה ומה ענינו זה לזה. ואמרתי דהנה כלם האריכו דמה עצה נתן החכם שלמה ע”ה הא בלי ספק המפתים לא יגידו כי הוא רע החלטי רק שבלי ספק למראית עינים יכחישוהו בפיך הטוב והיפה וא”כ איך ידע לבלי יתפתה לבו להם והעקידה האריך הרבה בזה ואמרתי בזה דשלמה ע”ה נתן מופת חותך דהנה הכלל בזה דדבר חכמה ומע”ט א”צ שיהיה בסתר של עולם ואין האדם מתיירא ע”פ רוב אבל כשהאדם אומר לחבירו לכה ונצא השדה ואגיד לך דבר טוב בסוד אז תדע כי שקר דיבר כי הוא לרע מתכוין כי למה מעלים דבר טוב וז”ש אם יאמרו לכה אתנו ונארבה לדם נצפנה לנקי חנם בזה בעצמו תדע כי תמנע רגליך מנתיבתם כי רגליהם לרע ירוצו וז”ש כי חכמות בחוץ תרונה וא”צ הצנע וסתר. וזהו שאמר בספרי בסתר וכן הוא אומר בנשף בערב יום והיינו כמ”ש ועין נואף שמרה נשף כי המחשך מעשהו אבל ד”ת אין נאמרים אלא בפרהסיא וכן הוא אומר חכמות בחוץ תרונה ות”ל כי כוונתי מעצמי לדברי הספרי הנ”ל.
He doesn’t make it clear where the Sifrei ends, and starts borrowing from various Midrashim, so here is the original language (ראה פיסקא לה):
בסתר לאמר. מלמד שאין אומרים דבריהם אלא בסתר. וכן הוא אומר (משלי ז’) בנשף בערב יום באישון לילה ואפילה. אבל דברי תורה אין נאמרים אלא בפרהסיא וכן הוא אומר (שם א’) חכמות בחוץ תרונה וגו’.