Portrait of the artist as she shores up her self-doubts. It never ceases to comfort me that VW was just as anxious as I am.

from "The Common Reader"

Virginia Woolf

Hasty, inaccurate, and superficial, snatching now at 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 out 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 poetic 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.