More then half (a majority) of the people he wishes he’d known better
Less then half (a minority)he doesn’t like as much as he thinks they deserve (but they do deserve to be liked).
So there’s nothing about the Sackvilles in those lines.
Yet the people that go unmentioned fall in neither of those categories, he doesn’t wish to know them better nor does he believe they deserve to be liked.
That’s why the lines are so diplomatic, he doesn’t say anything mean implicitly
It’s more simple:
More then half (a majority) of the people he wishes he’d known better
Less then half (a minority)he doesn’t like as much as he thinks they deserve (but they do deserve to be liked).
So there’s nothing about the Sackvilles in those lines.
Yet the people that go unmentioned fall in neither of those categories, he doesn’t wish to know them better nor does he believe they deserve to be liked.
That’s why the lines are so diplomatic, he doesn’t say anything mean implicitly