William Hazlitt

each of them has remarks relevant and irrelevant scribbled on their margins those favorite volumes cannot be called peculiar glories of literature but out of the world of books i have singled them as i have singled my intimates out of the world of men ah that makes pleasant reading for do not the sentiments expressed reflect our own feelings and do they not place us in gracious and distinguished company in his charming way goldsmith whispers the first time i read an excellent book it is to me as if i had gained a new friend when i read over a book i have perused before it resembles the meeting with an old one and to this dillon adds choose an author as you would choose a friend whilst langford touching the same thing declares that a wise man will select his book with care for he will not wish to class them all under the sacred name of friends and as friendship has its roots deep set in love and sympathy and is for serene days and country rambles and also for rough roads and hard fare shipwreck, poverty, and persecution, and moreover keeps company with the sallies of the wit.

It is easy enough to understand why such authors as Charles Lamb, Oliver Goldsmith, William Hazlitt, Lee Hunt, Richard Jeffreys, Thomas de Quincey, Joseph Addison, and, of later years, Robert Louis Stevenson, have our affections here they stand lamb goldsmith hazlitt hunt jeffreys the whole lovable company what shall i say concerning these friends of ours i am moved by deep and serious feelings but according to his own telling the gentle elia the first in mind had a general aversion from being treated like a grave or respectable character and kept a wary eye upon the advances of age that should so entitle him he heard it always while it was possible with people younger than himself he did not conform to the march of time but was dragged along in the procession his manners lagged behind his years he was too much of the boy man the toga virilis never sat gracefully on his shoulders the impressions of infancy had burnt into him and he resented the impertinence of manhood and therein surely rests the secret of his charm in spite of his brave confessions how firm to discerning hearts is the bed of the stream over which his thoughts flow who can doubt the source of a stream that flows so sweetly and what of oliver goldsmith poor goldy as he was called by his circle of intimates on earth he too was very human and indeed had many weaknesses and they tell us they who write of such matters with authority that his days of poverty and wretchedness were largely if not entirely the outcome of his follies even in the sphere in which he shines a clear bright inextinguishable star it is said that he had many shortcomings he had neither the gift of knowledge nor the power of research as an essayist and poet he has neither extended views nor originality as a critic upon the few occasions upon which he embarks on criticism his sympathies are of the most restricted kind and yet for the warmth and gentleness of his heart and the purity of his style we love him his playful and delicate style transformed everything he touched into something radiant with warmth and fragrant with a perfume all its own and how fared it with hazlitt the keen critic the impassioned writer unbending and severe insurgent in his political views we not told that he was really more of an artist and sentimentalist than a politician as for his life it was aesthetic bohemian and irregular in the extreme the restraints of domestic life were intolerable he wanted to be alone to write rough accommodation and coarse fare appeased him best tinkerdom was the ordinary state of his interior environment save for two pictures which served as a link with past aspiration and were treasured accordingly he had no property a fugitive amour seemed to furnish the emotional side of him with the stimulant it most required he was a night rambler and a reveller in rousseau over whose eloies and confessions he expended literally pints of tears such was the temperament of the writer artist and sentimentalist who gave us those incomparable essays on going a journey on the ignorance of the learned and on familiar style and what of those other old friends hunt jeffries de quincey robert louis stevenson but our inquiries have gone far enough what boots it to repeat that our friends were human in life just as surely as they are human in their books but with a humanity that allures charms captivates they do not preach to us these old friends of ours or make open claims to virtue and yet we are never so conscious of goodness as when they are near their lightest raillery scorns a mean act in their company meanness flees as from a pestilence our friends Wisely is it said that the best way to represent to life the manifold use of friendship is to cast and see how many things there are which a wise man cannot do himself.

And then it will appear that it was a sparing speech of the ancients to say that a friend is more than himself, for that a friend is far more than himself.

and so I thank Heaven for my friends, for the wise, the lovely, and the noble-minded who stand side by side ever willing, ever ready upon my humble shelf.