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Reading an old story by A. Blackwood, I am unable to decipher the sentence in bold:

He had told no fearsome story. He had evaded, indeed, many openings expressly made for him, though fully aware that to his well-known interest in psychical things was partly due his presence in the week-end party. “I never have experiences—that way,” he said shortly when some one asked him point blank for a tale;

I am confused by the "to" preposition as well as the usage of "due" - to me, it seems as if there were some words missing.

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It's an oddly-constructed sentence, but the meaning is

He was aware that his presence in the weekend party (the fact that he had been invited) was partly due to his well-known interest in psychical things.

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  • I pored over this one for at least a minute - after having checked Google Books to convince myself it probably wasn't just a typesetting error (it was only after seeing the same "apparently unwanted" preposition in multiple different editions that I made my second attempt to parse the construction). Personally, I think it has nothing to commend it, even if the phrasing was presumably intentional. Apr 19, 2021 at 16:42

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