Hazlitt, William (1778-1830)

On Reading Old Books [from The London Magazine]

London

Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy

February, 1821

"The reliance on solid worth which it inculcates, the preference of sober truth to gaudy tinsel, hangs like a mill-stone round the neck of the imagination—-'a load to sink a navy'--impedes our progress, and blocks up every prospect in life."

[...] There is a class of persons whose virtues and most shining qualities sink in, and are concealed by, an absorbent ground of modesty and reserve; and such a one I do, without vanity, profess myself*. Now these are the very persons who are likely to attach themselves to the character of Emilius, and of whom it is sure to be the bane. This dull, phlegmatic, retiring humour is not in a fair way to be corrected, but confirmed and rendered desperate, by being in that work held up as an object of imitation, as an example of simplicity and magnanimity--by coming upon us with all the recommendations of novelty, surprise, and superiority to the prejudices of the world--by being stuck upon a pedestal, made amiable, dazzling, a leurre de dupe! The reliance on solid worth which it inculcates, the preference of sober truth to gaudy tinsel, hangs like a mill-stone round the neck of the imagination--"a load to sink a navy"--impedes our progress, and blocks up every prospect in life. A man, to get on, to be successful, conspicuous, applauded, should not retire upon the centre of his conscious resources, but be always at the circumference of appearances. He must envelop himself in a halo of mystery--he must ride in an equipage of opinion--he must walk with a train of self-conceit following him--he must not strip himself to a buff-jerkin, to the doublet and hose of his real merits, but must surround himself with a cortege of prejudices, like the signs of the Zodiac--he must seem any thing but what he is, and then he may pass for any thing he pleases. The world love to be amused by hollow professions, to be deceived by flattering appearances, to live in a state of hallucination; and can forgive every thing but the plain, downright, simple honest truth--such as we see it chalked out in the character of Emilius.--To return from this digession, which is a little out of place here.
(pp. 72-4)

Body::Neck

Reading

Text from William Hazlitt, The Plain Speaker: Opinions on Books, Men, and Things, 2 vols. (London: Henry Colburn, 1826), ii, 63-83. <Link to Google Books>

First published in The London Magazine, vol. 3, No. xiv (February 1821): 128-134. <Link to Google Books>

07/24/2012