The present extract is taken from Virginia Woolf's "The Common Reader", a collection of essays published in the early 20ieth century. It deals with Virginia Woolf's convictions and ideas about the way fiction should be written.
The extract starts showing the reader the vagueness of all criticism. The argumentation goes on connecting the vagueness of criticism  to the content of traditional novels. According to Virginia Woof all traditional novels miss to provide what readers seek, the description of what life really is. That is caused by Victorian conventions that are no longer suit able to readers' needs, because their plot and the way in which they are constructed are fictional and give to the reader just an impression of life.

However, Virginia Woolf does not blame other writes because she believes they make a great effort, even if their labour is misplaced.
In addition, Virginia Woof criticizes Realism using the metaphor of the coat: she accuses traditional novels to prevent the reader from any imaginative effort, because everything is described carefully.
The extract ends with the description of how a novel should be constructed; according to Virginia Woolf what should be done is exactly  the opposite of the Victorian efforts

Accordingly novels should have no plot, no comedy and tragedy, but should  rather focus their attention on the description of a few characters as a pretext to reflect on life.