Commonalty

1906, Sinclair Lewis, "Unknown Undergraduates" first published in the Yale Literary Magazine, June, 1906, in The Man from Main Street: Selected Essays and Other Writings, 1904-1950, Harry E. Maule and Melville H. Cane (eds.), New York: Pocket Books, 1962, p. 122, Besides the men who are unknown but important there is the commonalty, whom you regard as mere entities, whose very names you do not know, or will forget before your triennial.

The people were averse to him, as the supposed author of the violence on the monasteries; establishments which were still revered and beloved by the commonalty.

In much the same way do the commonalty lead their leaders in many other things, at the same time that the leaders little suspect it.

[…] and all the people wholly for this gentleness, first the estates both high and low, and after the commonalty cried at once: Sir Launcelot hath won the field whosoever say nay.

Second Citizen: Would you proceed especially against Caius Marcius? First Citizen: Against him first: he's a very dog to the commonalty.

The commonalty spoke of his mighty spear-thrust, of his deft sword-swing, the terror of his wrath, of the fury of his battle-lust, of his laughter and light joy, and the singing that was on his lips when his sword had the silence upon it.

Or is there some way in which the product of that solitude—writing—may none the less be profoundly social, rejoining the commonalty of society, and through its indirections and specificities being the most authentic contribution the writer can offer?

Some individuals fight the expectation that they ought to be part of any such "we," while others eagerly seek a sense of commonalty.