rallel, it is the manner,
somewhat exaggerated, in which Mr. G. K. Chesterton examines the upstart
heresies of our own agitated day. There would be nothing fanciful in
suggesting that all these men owed a direct debt to Hazlitt--Stevenson on
many occasions acknowledged it.[13] Hazlitt was as honest and sincere as
any of them. Though the opening of an essay may appear perverse, he is
sure to enforce his point before proceeding very far. He accumulates
familiar instances in such abundance as to render obvious what at first
seemed paradoxical. He writes "On the Ignorance of the Learned" and makes
it perfectly clear that no person knows less of the actual life of the
world than he whose experience is confined to books. On the other hand he
has a whole-hearted appreciation of pedantry: "The power of attaching an
interest to the most trifling or painful pursuits, in which our whole
attention and faculties are engaged, is one of the greatest happinesses of
our nature.... He who is not in some measure a pedant, though he may be a
wise, cannot be a very happy man."[14] These two examples illustrate
Hazlitt's manner of presenting both views of a subject by concentrating
his attention on each separately and examining it without regard to the
other. On one occasion he anatomizes the faults of the dissenters, and on
another he extols their virtues, "I have inveighed all my life against
the insolence of the Tories, and for this I have the authority both of
Whigs and Reformers; but then I have occasionally spoken against the
imbecility of the Whigs, and the extravagance of the Reformers, and thus
have brought all three on my back, though two out of the three regularly
agree with all I say of the third party."[15] The strange thing is not
that he should have incurred the wrath of all parties, but that he should
show surprise at the result.

Very often Hazlitt's reflections are the generalization of his personal
experience. The essay "On the Disadvantages of Intellectual Superiority"
is but a record of the trials to which he was exposed by his morbid
sensitiveness and want of social tact, and amid much excellent advice "On
the Conduct of Life," there are passages which merely reflect his own
marital misfortunes. It is not so much that he is a dupe of his emotions,
but in his view of life he attaches a higher importance to feeling than to
reason, and so provides a philosophic basis for his strongest prejudices.
"Custom, passion, imaginati