t would seem, strongly
resembled those of a tradesman getting rid of a rather flighty and
imprudent partner in business. She is extremely precise as to all
pecuniary and legal details; she calls upon her husband now and then,
takes tea with him, makes an off-hand remark or two about some
picture-gallery which he had been visiting, and tells him that he has
made a fool of himself, with the calmness of a lady dismissing a
troublesome servant, or a schoolmaster parting from an ill-behaved
pupil. And meanwhile, in queer contrast, Hazlitt was pouring out to his
friends letters which seem to be throbbing with unrestrainable passion.
He is raving as Romeo at Mantua might have raved about Juliet. To hear
Miss Walker called his wife will be music to his ears, such as they
never heard. But it seems doubtful whether, after all, his Juliet will
have him. He shrieks mere despair and suicide. Nothing is left in the
world to give him a drop of comfort. The breeze does not cool him nor
the blue sky delight him. He will never lie down at night nor rise up of
a morning in peace, nor even behold his little boy's face with pleasure,
unless he is restored to her favour. And Mrs. Hazlitt reports, after
acknowledging the receipt of L10, that Mr. Hazlitt was so much
'enamoured' of one of these letters that he pulled it out of his pocket
twenty times a day, wanted to read it to his companions, and ranted and
gesticulated till people took him for a madman. The 'Liber Amoris' is
made out of these letters--more or less altered and disguised, with some
reports of conversations with the lovely Sarah. 'It was an explosion of
frenzy,' says De Quincey; his reckless mode of relieving his bosom of
certain perilous stuff, with little care whether it produced scorn or
sympathy. A passion which urges its victim to such improprieties should
be, at least, deep and genuine. One would have liked him better if he
had not taken his frenzy to market. The 'Liber Amoris' tells us
accordingly that the author, Hazlitt's imaginary double, died abroad,
'of disappointment preying on a sickly frame and morbid state of mind.'
The hero, in short, breaks his heart when the lady marries somebody
else. Hazlitt's heart was more elastic. Miss Sarah Walker married, and
Hazlitt next year married a widow lady 'of some property,' made a tour
with her on the Continent, and then--quarrelled with her also. It is not
a pretty story. Hazlitt's biographer informs us, by way of excuse, that