The attitude of the average decent person towards the classics of his own tongue is one of distrust—­I had almost said, of fear.  I will not take the case of Shakespeare, for Shakespeare is “taught” in schools; that is to say, the Board of Education and all authorities pedagogic bind themselves together in a determined effort to make every boy in the land a lifelong enemy of Shakespeare. (It is a mercy they don’t “teach” Blake.) I will take, for an example, Sir Thomas Browne, as to whom the average person has no offensive juvenile memories.  He is bound to have read somewhere that the style of Sir Thomas Browne is unsurpassed by anything in English literature.  One day he sees the Religio Medici in a shop-window (or, rather, outside a shop-window, for he would hesitate about entering a bookshop), and he buys it, by way of a mild experiment.  He does not expect to be enchanted by it; a profound instinct tells him that Sir Thomas Browne is “not in his line”; and in the result he is even less enchanted than he expected to be.  He reads the introduction, and he glances at the first page or two of the work.  He sees nothing but words.  The work makes no appeal to him whatever.  He is surrounded by trees, and cannot perceive the forest.  He puts the book away.  If Sir Thomas Browne is mentioned, he will say, “Yes, very fine!” with a feeling of pride that he has at any rate bought and inspected Sir Thomas Browne.  Deep in his heart is a suspicion that people who get enthusiastic about Sir Thomas Browne are vain and conceited poseurs.  After a year or so, when he has recovered from the discouragement caused by Sir Thomas Browne, he may, if he is young and hopeful, repeat the experiment with Congreve or Addison.  Same sequel!  And so on for perhaps a decade, until his commerce with the classics finally expires!  That, magazines and newish fiction apart, is the literary history of the average decent person.

And even your case, though you are genuinely preoccupied with thoughts of literature, bears certain disturbing resemblances to the drab case of the average person.  You do not approach the classics with gusto—­anyhow, not with the same gusto as you would approach a new novel by a modern author who had taken your fancy.  You never murmured to yourself, when reading Gibbon’s Decline and Fall in bed:  “Well, I really must read one more chapter before I go to sleep!” Speaking generally, the classics do not afford you a pleasure commensurate with their renown.  You peruse them with a sense of duty, a sense of doing the right thing, a sense of “improving yourself,” rather than with a sense of gladness.  You do not smack your lips; you say:  “That is good for me.”  You make little plans for reading, and then you invent excuses for breaking the plans.  Something new, something which is not a classic, will surely draw you away from a classic.  It is all very well for you to pretend to agree with the verdict of the elect that Clarissa Harlowe