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Prose

Notes For long periods, for solace and so he could concentrate on his writing, he frequently retreated to
the country, staying at “The Hut”, an inn at Winterslow, near where his wife had some property
(he had come to love that countryside at the beginning of his marriage). He shut himself away like
a hermit and returned to contributing to periodicals, including the recently reestablished (1820)
London Magazine, to which he contributed drama criticism and miscellaneous essays. Roman road
towards Middle Winterslow, and the route which Hazlitt preferred to take to the village
One idea that particularly bore fruit was that of a series of articles called “Table-Talk”. (Many
were written expressly for inclusion in the book of the same name, Table-Talk; or, Original Essays,
which appeared in different editions and forms over the next few years.) These were essays in the
“familiar style” of the sort that had begun with Montaigne two centuries earlier, and were greatly
admired by Hazlitt. Here he brought his essay writing much closer to the model of the “familiar

essay”as distinct from the eighteenth-century periodical essay. The personal “I” was now substituted
for the editorial “we”. In a preface to a later edition of the book, Hazlitt explained that rather than
being scholarly and precise, these essays attempted to combine the “literary and the conversational”.
As in a conversation between friends, the discussion would often branch off into topics related
only in a general way to the main theme, “but which often threw a curious and striking light upon
it, or upon human life in general”.
Though the essays were structured in the loose manner of conversations held at a table, this was
a time when Hazlitt frequently secluded himself in isolation at Winterslow. His motivation is
explained in one of the Table-Talk essays, “On Living to One’s-Self” (January 1821), as not wanting
to withdraw completely but rather to become an invisible observer of society. Also here and
elsewhere in the series he weaves personal material into more general reflections on life, frequently
bringing in long recollections of happy days of his years as an apprentice painter (as in “On the
Pleasure of Painting”, written in December 1820) as well as other pleasurable recollections of
earlier years, “hours ... sacred to silence and to musing, to be treasured up in the memory, and to
feed the source of smiling thoughts thereafter” (“On Going a Journey”, written January 1822).
Hazlitt also had to spend time in London in these years. In another violent contrast, a London
lodging house was the stage on which the worst crisis of his life was to play itself out.
In August 1820, he rented a couple of rooms in 9 Southampton Buildings in London from a tailor
named Micaiah Walker. Walker’s 19-year-old daughter Sarah, who helped with the housekeeping,
would bring the new lodger his breakfast. Immediately, Hazlitt became infatuated with Miss
Walker, more than 22 years his junior. His brief conversations with Walker cheered him and
alleviated the loneliness that he felt from his failed marriage. He dreamed of marrying her, but
that would require a divorce from Sarah Hazlitt—no easy matter. Finally, his wife agreed to grant
him a Scottish divorce, which would allow him to remarry (as he could not had he been divorced
in England).
Sarah Walker was, as some of Hazlitt’s friends could see, a fairly ordinary girl. She had aspirations
to better herself, and a famous author seemed like a prize catch, but she never really understood
Hazlitt. When another lodger named Tomkins came along, she entered into a romantic entanglement
with him as well, leading each of her suitors to believe he was the sole object of her affection. With
vague words, she evaded absolute commitment until she could decide which she liked better or
was the more advantageous catch.
Hazlitt discovered the truth about Tomkins, and from then on his jealousy and suspicions of Sarah
Walker’s real character afforded him little rest. For months, during the preparations for the divorce
and as he tried to earn a living, he alternated between rage and despair, on the one hand, and the
comforting if unrealistic thought that she was really “a good girl” and would accept him at last.

The divorce was finalised on 17 July 1822, and Hazlitt returned to London to see his beloved—
only to find her cold and resistant. They then become involved in angry altercations of jealousy
and recrimination. And it was over, though Hazlitt could not for some time persuade himself to
believe so. His mind nearly snapped. At his emotional nadir, he contemplated suicide.

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