william hazlitt

I’m reading William Hazlitt and enjoying it. I read most things twice these days. Once for style. Once for entertainment. I’m still on style.

I’m not sure when I quit reading for the sake of a story; when I became more concerned with the way words were used and strung together. I’m thinking it was probably around 2001.

Just after 11 September when I picked up some bit or bob from Waterstones and had to read and re-read and re-re-read it because nothing sunk in or made sense in those days. Internalisation didn’t seem to matter when the external world was going to hell. It all seems very dramatic and probably counter to itself now but that’s exactly how I felt then.

And the more I read the words to understand their meaning, the more I didn’t care. I mean, I did. But only for the words. Only in so far as they were what they were. Not because they told a story or led to anything new or separate on the next page.

I love words – even though I don’t use them so well as I’d like – and they sometimes get in the way because I find myself stopping, as with Hazlitt, and ooohing and aahhing and underlining things like “drab coloured Quakerism of mortality” and “mixed motives of human character” and not getting on with the main…which is reading. So in that way they’re a nuisance.

Anyway, here is Hazlitt. I think. Flynn will tell me if I’m right.