If we ask what it is [Orwell] stands for, what he is the figure of, the answer is: the virtue of not being a genius, of fronting the world with nothing more than one's simple, direct, undeceived intelligence, and a respect for the powers one does have, and the work one undertakes to do.... He is not a genius--what a relief! What an encouragement. For he communicates to us the sense that what he has done, any one of us could do.