But the power of co-ordination was not always exerted; perhaps not always
possible. Had it been so, then Hazlitt would not take his place in this
little band of literary Vagabonds.
There are times when the Puritan element disappears; and it is Hazlitt
the eager, curious taster of life that is presented to us. For there was
the restless inquisitiveness of the Vagabond about him. This gives such
delightful piquancy to many of his utterances. He ranges far and wide,
and is willing to go anywhere for a fresh sensation that may add to the
interest of his intellectual life. He has no patience with readers who
will not quit their own small back gardens. He is for ranging "over the
hills and far away."
No sympathy he with the readers who take timid constitutionals in
literature, choosing only the well-worn paths. He is a true son of the
road; the world is before him, and high roads and byways, rough paths and
smooth paths, are equally acceptable, provided they add to his zest and
enjoyment.
Not that he cares for the new merely because it is new. The essay on
"Reading Old Books" is proof enough of that. A literary ramble must not
merely be novel, it must have some element of beauty about it, or he will
revisit the old haunts of whose beauty he has full cognizance.
The passion for the Earth which was noted as one of the Vagabond's
characteristics is not so pronounced in Hazlitt and De Quincey as with
the later Vagabonds. But it is unmistakable all the same. There are, he
says, "only three pleasures in life pure and lasting, and all derived
from inanimate things--books, pictures, and the face of Nature." The
somewhat curious use of the word "inanimate" here as applied to the "face
of Nature" scarcely does justice to his intense, vivid appreciation of
the life of the open air; but at any rate it differentiates his attitude
towards Nature from that of Wordsworth and his school. It is a feeling
more direct, more concrete, more personal.
He has no special liking for country people. On the contrary, he thinks
them a dull, heavy class of people.
"All country people hate one another," he says. "They have so little
comfort that they envy their neighbours the smallest pleasure and
advantage, and nearly grudge themselves the necessaries of life. From
not being accustomed to enjoyment, they become hardened and averse to
it--stupid, for want of thought, selfish, for want of society."
No; it is the sheer joy of being in the open, and learning what Whitman
called the "profound lesson of reception," that attracted Hazlitt. "What
I like best," he declares, "is to lie whole mornings on a sunny bank on
Salisbury Plain, without any object before me, neither knowing nor caring
how time passes, and thus, 'with light-winged toys and feathered
idleness, to melt down hours to moments.'" A genuine Vagabond mood this.
Hazlitt, like De Quincey, had felt the glamour of the city as well as the
glamour of the country; not with the irresistibility of Lamb, but for all
that potently. But an instinct for the open, the craving for pleasant
spaces, and the longing of the hard-driven journalist for the gracious
leisure of the country, these things were paramount with both Hazlitt and
De Quincey.
In Hazlitt's case there is a touch of wildness, a more primal delight in
the roughness and solitude of country places than we find in De Quincey.
"One of the pleasantest things," says Hazlitt, in true Vagabond spirit,
"is going on a journey; but I like to go by myself."
The last touch is not only characteristic of Hazlitt, it touches that
note of reserve verging on anti-social sentiment that was mentioned as
characteristic of the Vagabond.
He justifies his feeling thus with an engaging frankness: "The soul of a
journey is liberty, perfect liberty, to think, feel. Do just as one
pleases. We go a journey chiefly to be free of all impediments and of
all inconveniences; to leave ourselves behind; much more to get rid of
others. . . . It is hard if I cannot start some game on these lone
heaths. I laugh, I run, I leap, I sing for joy. From the point of
yonder rolling cloud I plunge into my past being, and revel there, as the
sunburnt Indian plunges headlong into the wave that wafts him to his
native shore. Then long-forgotten things, like 'sunken wrack and sunless
treasures,' burst upon my eager sight, and I begin to feel, think, and be
myself again."