The Common Reader (1925)

                     
  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 
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.