understated--the unsatisfactory characteristics of your particular
case, but it is probable that in the mirror I hold up you recognise
the rough outlines of your likeness. You do not care to admit it; but
it is so. You are not content with yourself. The desire to be more
truly literary persists in you. You feel that there is something wrong
in you, but you cannot put your finger on the spot. Further, you feel
that you are a bit of a sham. Something within you continually
forces you to exhibit for the classics an enthusiasm which you do
not sincerely feel. You even try to persuade yourself that you are
enjoying a book, when the next moment you drop it in the middle and
forget to resume it. You occasionally buy classical works, and do not
read them at all; you practically decide that it is enough to possess
them, and that the mere possession of them gives you a _cachet_. The
truth is, you are a sham. And your soul is a sea of uneasy remorse.
You reflect: "According to what Matthew Arnold says, I ought to be
perfectly mad about Wordsworth's _Prelude_. And I am not. Why am I
not? Have I got to be learned, to undertake a vast course of study, in
order to be perfectly mad about Wordsworth's _Prelude_? Or am I born
without the faculty of pure taste in literature, despite my vague
longings? I do wish I could smack my lips over Wordsworth's _Prelude_
as I did over that splendid story by H.G. Wells, _The Country of the
Blind_, in the _Strand Magazine_!".... Yes, I am convinced that in
your dissatisfied, your diviner moments, you address yourself in these
terms. I am convinced that I have diagnosed your symptoms.

Now the enterprise of forming one's literary taste is an agreeable
one; if it is not agreeable it cannot succeed. But this does not imply
that it is an easy or a brief one. The enterprise of beating Colonel
Bogey at golf is an agreeable one, but it means honest and regular
work. A fact to be borne in mind always! You are certainly not