Chapter II

YOUR PARTICULAR CASE

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