"The Common Reader" (1925) (essay)
There is a sentence in Dr. Johnson’s Life of Gray which might well be
written up in all those rooms, too humble to be called libraries, yet
full of books, where the pursuit of reading is carried on by private
people. “. . . I rejoice to concur with the common reader; for by the
common sense of readers, uncorrupted by literary prejudices, after all
the refinements of subtilty and the dogmatism of learning, must be
finally decided all claim to poetical honours.” It defines their
qualities; it dignifies their aims; it bestows upon a pursuit which
devours a great deal of time, and is yet apt to leave behind it nothing
very substantial, the sanction of the great man’s approval.
The common reader, as Dr. Johnson implies, differs from the critic and
the scholar. He is worse educated, and nature has not gifted him so
generously. He reads for his own pleasure rather than to impart
knowledge or correct the opinions of others. Above all, he is guided by
an instinct to create for himself, out of whatever odds and ends he can
come by, some kind of whole—a portrait of a man, a sketch of an age, a
theory of the art of writing. He never ceases, as he reads, to run up
some rickety and ramshackle fabric which shall give him the temporary
satisfaction of looking sufficiently like the real object to allow of
affection, laughter, and argument. Hasty, inaccurate, and superficial,
snatching now this poem, now that scrap of old furniture without caring
where he finds it or of what nature it may be so long as it serves his
purpose and rounds his structure, his deficiencies as a critic are too
obvious to be pointed out; but if he has, as Dr. Johnson maintained,
some say in the final distribution of poetical honours, then, perhaps,
it may be worth while to write down a few of the ideas and opinions
which, insignificant in themselves, yet contribute to so mighty a
result.