Thursday, October 8, 2009

Daily Dose

From William Hazlitt, by Augustine Birrell

HAZLITT

“It is necessary to keep on one’s guard against the sham raptures of men of literary genius. Great gifts of expression always seek employment; and if writers so endowed wish to describe themselves as basking in glorious sunshine, they will not be deterred from doing so by the fact that at the moment of writing the rain is falling heavily to the ground. It is Talfourd, I think, who advises Hazlitt’s readers ‘to allow for the wind.’”


From The English Men of Letters Series

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