The Misanthrope’s Corner

I HAVEN’T checked what are laughably called college curricula lately, but it’s a sure bet that English departments, if they still exist, do not require students to read the works of William Hazlitt. Not only is he white, male, and dead, but he wrote an essay that could prove fatal to the American balancing act our colleges are sworn to uphold. It’s called “On the Pleasure of Hating.”

Hazlitt (1778—1830) was an intense, eternally irritable intellectual who lived in an age that clashed with his sour temperament. The early 19th century was sunk in the tender emotions of the Romantic era. Writers like Wordsworth had come to regret their earlier enthusiasm for the French Revolution (“Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive . . .”) and its violence. Reaction set in, and ideology was replaced by a gauzy veneration of nature and beauty, love and nostalgia, as well as a major switch in the body fluid of record: Blood was out; tears were in.

About the Author

Florence King

Florence King was a contributing editor of National Review.

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I HAVEN’T checked what are laughably called college curricula lately, but it’s a sure bet that English departments, if they still exist, do not require students to read the works of William Hazlitt. Not only is he white, male, and dead, but he wrote an essay that could prove fatal to the American balancing act our colleges are sworn to uphold. It’s called “On the Pleasure of Hating.”

Hazlitt (1778—1830) was an intense, eternally irritable intellectual who lived in an age that clashed with his sour temperament. The early 19th century was sunk in the tender emotions of the Romantic era. Writers like Wordsworth had come to regret their earlier enthusiasm for the French Revolution (“Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive . . .”) and its violence. Reaction set in, and ideology was replaced by a gauzy veneration of nature and beauty, love and nostalgia, as well as a major switch in the body fluid of record: Blood was out; tears were in.