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.
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.
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