1.

William Hazlitt's "On the Pleasure of Hating"

Perception of interacting with things. William Hazlitt’s ‘On the Pleasure of Hating’,
promises to indulge one’s mind in changing his/her perception of foreseeing things in a
yet different way. The author’s way of expressing this ‘pleasure of hating’ ,that being the
context of his study, did reflect a lot about how things should be thought in a realistic way,
and, later how they then can be further thought that makes a person even feel the pleasure
of hating. the author’s work was seen as holding solid grounds, when his viewpoints were
defended through series of examples, the extent to which everything is taken by author in
a yet pessimist way, at times was seen of reflecting much of authors personal life
experiences, rather than what the society members (including me) would feel in
general. On the contrary, if it was not this, then, linking every living creature of how
pleasures of hatred are observed within them, did make it easy to understand the context
of this study, but, in a practical way, did left a lot of ambiguity, when linkage of authors
examples with the real life examples was seen to be done by me. Starting from, not every
individual would consider hate, as a pleasure, as for most, hate would remain the way it
was and be more what avoided, along with this, not everyone would consider life like
a stagnant pool when no bad is left in life, as most would for sure dream to have a life
with no hatred. The author’s thinking in defining hatred takes a number of forms, from
subjective to imaginative to even more personal. This can be seen when author describes
his level of hatred for a spider that enters the room with ‘I bear the creature no ill-will,
but still I hate the very sight of it’. This line stating as not every individual would have the
same level of hatred for spiders as compared to what the author felt at that time, thus a
rather more personal hatred. Followed by this author’s imaginative viewpoint for hatred
that states, ‘Pain is a bittersweet, wants variety and spirit. Love turns, with a little
indulgence, to indifference or disgust: hatred alone is immortal’. This imaginative
thinking for sure leaves others to further brainstorm over what is stated but still leaves a
lot with lot of ambiguity of whether the truth of this statement can be weighted practically
or not. And finally the subjective nature of hatred, that can be picked best from this line
‘The pleasure of hating, like a poisonous mineral, eats into the heart of religion, and
turns it to rankling spleen and bigotry; it makes patriotism an excuse for carrying fire,
pestilence, and famine into other lands. This thus elaborates over the in-depth viewpoints
of author, over how hatred can be seen as being best fit in a number of situations and that
later holds a debate of its own.
In conclusion, it can be said that the constructive arguments and lot of examples
as seen to be shared by author, in this study, offered in knowing a lot, that is the pleasure
of hatred, but to a certain extent also left a lot of ambiguity, over his pessimist approach,
that for me elaborated too much over the negative aspects rather than positive aspects of
life.
 2. “A Piece of Chalk”:

In the first paragraph of his essay, “A Piece of Chalk,” G. K. Chesterton creates a foil, so to
speak, in the person of an elderly homeowner whom he describes as “square and sensible.” (A foil
is a character whose personality consists of traits that are opposite to those of the main character
and, therefore, highlight the protagonist’s own personality traits. In other words, Chesterton’s first-
person narrator will believe differently, think differently, feel differently, and act differently than
the homeowner.) The adjectives “square” and “sensible” suggest that the homeowner is
conventional, practical, and, perhaps, unimaginative; since she is a foil to the essay’s narrator, the
narrator himself will be unconventional, impractical (or, rather, romantic and idealistic), and
imaginative. The rest of the opening paragraph shows readers that they are correct in having made
these assumptions about both the foil and her opponent, the narrator. When the latter asks the
former for “brown paper,” she misunderstands his intentions, thinking that he wants to wrap
parcels, when, in fact, wishing to draw pictures, he has asked for the “brown paper” because of its
“responsive surface”; he is uninterested in whether it has the qualities of “toughness” and
“endurance” that the homeowner finds significant in such paper:
She seemed to have an idea that if a person wanted brown paper he must be wanting to tie up
parcels; which was the last thing I wanted to do. . . . Hence she dwelt very much on the varying
qualities of toughness and endurance in the material. I explained to her that I only wanted to draw
pictures on it, and that I did not want them to endure in the least; and that from my point of view,
therefore, it was a question, not of tough consistency, but of responsive surface, a thing
comparatively irrelevant in a parcel.
The homeowner, readers find, is also generous, for, “when she understood that” the narrator
“wanted to draw she offered to overwhelm” him “with notepaper.” However, the fact that she
regards notepaper as a superior surface upon which to draw shows her conventional, practical, and
unimaginative character, for she obviously does not understand the reasons for which the narrator
prefers “brown paper” to the “notepaper” that she offers him, and, in the next paragraph, he finds
it necessary to attempt an explanation to her of his preference. Through his characters’ actions,
Chesterton not only characterizes the homeowner as prosaic and the narrator as poetic in their
respective aesthetic orientations (and conventional, practical, and unimaginative and as
unconventional, romantic, and imaginative in their respective general points of view), but he also
suggests a point that it critical to readers’ understanding of his essay’s theme. Specific qualities or
traits determine a person’s character, which is his or her essence; his or her character, in turn,
determines his or her point of view; one’s point of view determines both his or her sense of
purpose, for him- or herself and for other people and objects, including nature, and the way in
which he or she interacts with both the world and other individuals. From the homeowner’s point
of view, “brown paper” has one--and only one--purpose: “to tie up parcels,” and it is good,
therefore, depending upon whether it is tough and durable. However, the narrator declares, from
his “point of view,” that what is important in “brown paper” is its “responsive surface, a thing
comparatively irrelevant in a parcel.” His own essence is determined by the qualities inherent in
his character (unconventionality, romanticism, idealism, and imaginativeness); these qualities, in
turn, determine his point of view (which is also unconventional, romantic, idealistic, and
imaginative); his point of view determines his sense of purpose (he sees “brown paper” as a
drawing surface--a purpose for such paper that is literally unimaginable to the conventional,
practical, and unimaginative homeowner) and the way in which he interacts with the world and
with others (which is described later in the essay).
In paragraph two of the essay, Chesterton’s narrator explains his preference for “brown paper”
over “notepaper” as a drawing surface, in the process drawing an analogy between artistic creation
and divine creation (which is similar, incidentally, to the analogy that J. R. R. Tolkien makes
between these same two activities in his discussion of the artist as a “sub-creator” who, by his or
her works, participates in creation itself). The narrator likes “brown paper” because it is brown; he
likes the quality of the “brownness” of the paper, which, to his mind (that is, from his point of
view), symbolizes “the primal twilight of the first toil of creation”:
I then tried to explain the rather delicate logical shade, that I not only liked brown paper, but liked
the quality of brownness in paper, just as I like the quality of brownness in October woods, or in
beer. Brown paper represents the primal twilight of the first toil of creation, and with a bright-
colored chalk or two you can pick out points of fire in it, sparks of gold, and blood-red, and sea-
green, like the first fierce stars that sprang out of divine darkness.
The “brown paper” has an essence--its brownness--just as the homeowner and the narrator himself
have their essences; the character of the “brown paper”; its essence, as a drawing surface upon
which an artist may “with a bright-colored chalk or two . . pick out points of fire in it, sparks of
gold, and blood-red, and sea-green, like the first fierce stars that sprang out of divine darkness,” is
that it is a medium for artistic creativity by which the artist expresses an ability similar to that of
the divine Creator, God, himself. This paragraph accomplishes still more, by showing the
narrator’s romantic and idealistic (in the Platonic, not the sentimental) sense of the word. The
narrator, like Plato, believes in the essences of things; he believes that the true character, or nature,
of things resides not in themselves, but in the mind of the Creator; that the things of this world--
and, indeed, the very world itself--are but dim shadows, as it were, of their true selves. This is why
even seemingly trivial objects have dimensions far greater than they appear to have; their
appearances are deceiving, but not to one who has the “point of view” that Chesterton’s narrator
has. The narrator’s assumption that “I suppose everyone must have reflected how primeval and
how poetical the things that one carries in one’s pocket are” is ironic, of course, for it is a rare
mind that thinks such thoughts--a mind such as that of William Wordsworth, perhaps, or that of
Plato or that of Chesterton. Most men and women merely take such everyday objects as the things
that they carry in their pockets for granted, without considering them at all. It is only a poet, a
philosopher, or a mystic who might trouble him- or herself to meditate upon such things. Were
others to do so, however, they might realize anew that such objects are marvelous, not mundane:
the “pocket-knife” that the narrator cites as an example of an object that he carries (along with the
chalks) in his pocket was once unprocessed ore that, mined from the earth, was smelted in a
furnace, before being shaped by art and craft into something entirely new, with an original purpose
that had never before been imagined, becoming both a tool and the prototype of a weapon, the
sword, upon which human civilization and culture, to a large degree, depends. Such a mind as
Chesterton’s might, one imagines, truly write “a book of poems entirely about things in” his
“pockets” that would be of “epic” length. However, his spokesman, the essay’s narrator, says, it
would be vain for him to do so in the present age because “the age of great epics is past.” Men and
women are no longer interested in grand poems that express the greatness of the human spirit and
the monumental moral struggles in which, often in a supernatural context, human beings engage.

He says that he sets forth, to walk “out on the great downs,” rather like an explorer going to sea,
but armed, as it were, not with sword and shield or compass, sextant, and maritime charts, but with
seemingly trivial and insignificant things: “my stick and my knife, my chalks and my brown
paper.” Indeed, he describes the “downs” as if they are the seas of an ocean; the hills are like
waves, “one swell of living turf after another”--the hills, readers notice, are not dead, but alive;
they, like everything else, has a soul of sorts, not in the pantheistic sense, but in the sense that
spirit--the Spirit of God--is everywhere present at once and that, therefore, all things are filled with
his Spirit. It is this reality that the narrator wants to capture on “brown paper” with his chalks,
which is why he declares, “for heaven’s sake,” that he does not want to “sketch from Nature.”
Instead, he says, he intends to “draw devils and seraphim, and blind old gods that men worshipped
before the dawn of right, and saints in robes of angry crimson, and seas of strange green, all of the
sacred or monstrous symbols that look so well in bright colors on brown paper.” He wants to
express the numinous and awe-filled, ecstatic character--the essence--of the spiritual rather than to
merely render a copy of the physical objects of the natural world. He is a romantic--even an
impressionistic--artist, not a mere copyist. For the narrator, art is not mimetic, as Aristotle holds,
but a rite by which the artist can commune with God, through nature, expressing his or her own
passion and wonder, his or her own awe and devotion; art is a form, in other words, of worship.
Such things as “devils and seraphim,” he insists “are much better worth drawing than Nature.” To
further distinguish between the realistic aim of mimetic art and the emotional and devotional aims
of what might be called religious art, the narrator explains how he would depict a very mundane
object--a cow:
When a cow came slouching by in the field next to me, a mere artist might have drawn it; but I
always get wrong in the hind legs of quadrupeds. So I drew the soul of a cow; which I saw there
plainly walking before me in the sunlight; and the soul was all purple and silver, and had seven
horns and the mystery that belongs to all beasts.
This is the cow, he implies, as it may actually exist, in the mind of its Creator. The flesh-and-blood
cow is a mere copy, the shadow of its true and ideal form, of its shape in the mind of God. Although
some literary critics contend that the pre-Romantic poets, those “old poets who lived before
Wordsworth,” did “not. . . care very much about Nature because they did not describe it much,”
he disagrees. The “old poets” also cared deeply about nature, he says, and their reverence and
appreciation of nature’s beauty and majesty is reflected in, and enhances, their work:
They preferred writing about great men to writing about great hills; but they sat on the great hills
to write it. The gave out much less about Nature, but they drank in, perhaps, much more. They
painted the white robes of their holy virgins with the blinding snow, at which they had stared all
day. . . The greenness of a thousand green leaves clustered into the live green figure of Robin
Hood. The blueness of a score of forgotten skies became the blue robes of the Virgin. The
inspiration went in like sunbeams [natural phenomena] and came out like Apollo [spiritualized, or
divine, nature].
The narrator is “disgusted” to discover that he has forgotten to bring the “most. . . essential” chalk
with him, a stick of white chalk. Like everything else, white chalk has an essence. It has a quality
that is both inherent and indispensable, a quality that makes it what it is. White chalk, the narrator
implies, symbolizes a reverence for, and a passionate devotion to, virtue. As such, whiteness, he
insists, “is not a mere absence of color; it is a shining and affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as
definite as black.” There is also something supernatural about this passion, he suggests. There are
two types of passion, the narrator implies: the “red-hot” fire that produces “roses,” symbols of
natural beauty, and the “white-hot” fire that produces “stars,” symbols of transcendent, or
heavenly, beauty: “When, so to speak, your pencil grows red-hot, it draws roses; when it grows
white-hot, it draws stars.” “White-hot” passion is associated with virtue, which, in turn, is
associated with such additional spiritual qualities as morality, mercy, and chastity:
And one of the two or three defiant verities of the best religious morality, of real Christianity, for
example, is exactly this same thing; the chief assertion of religious morality is that white is a color.
Virtue is not the absence of vices or the avoidance of moral dangers; virtue is a vivid and separate
thing, like pain or a particular smell. Mercy does not mean not being cruel, or sparing people
revenge or punishment; it means a plain and positive thing like the sun, which one has either seen
or not seen.
Chastity does not mean abstention from sexual wrong; it means something flaming, like Joan of
Arc. . . .
Only someone who is, like the homeowner with whom the essay begins, conventional, practical,
unimaginative, and prosaic, would consider virtue to be merely “the absence of vices or the
avoidance of moral dangers,” rather than “a vivid and separate thing, like pain or a particular
smell”; who would consider mercy to be simply behavior that is not “mean” or “cruel” or as a
“sparing [of] people revenge or punishment,” rather than “a plain and positive thing like the sun,
which one has either seen or not seen”; or who would suppose that chastity is nothing more than
“abstention from sexual wrong,” rather than “something flaming, like Joan of Arc.”

For Chesterton’s narrator, God is also passionate in his creation. He “paints in many colors.”
However, the primary color so to speak, in which God paints is white, and this is the most
“glorious” color that he uses: “he never paints so gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily, as when
He paints in white.” In some dim sense, human beings understand the mystical and essential
character of whiteness, but they have sought, whether consciously and deliberately or otherwise,
to suppress it:
In a sense our age has realized this fact, and expressed it in our sullen costume. For if it were really
true that white was a blank and colorless thing, negative and non-committal, then white would be
used instead of black and grey for the funereal dress of this pessimistic period. Which is not the
case.
For those who appreciate and accept the value of virtue as a “positive and essential” quality of the
spirit that is as real as “pain or a particular smell” or as “the sun, which one has either seen or not
seen,” that is, experienced or not experienced, art, like the world itself, is apt to seem meaningless,
or “absurd,” for it is the essential quality of virtue, the narrator contends, that gives both art and
existence itself their value, their meaning, and their purpose, just as “good people” make life worth
living: “without any white, my absurd little pictures would be as pointless as the world would be
if there were no good people in it.”
In the final paragraph, the despairing narrator realizes, to his great joy, that he is not without white
chalk, after all: the very landscape is made of the substance.
I sat on the hill in a sort of despair. There was no town near at which it was even remotely probable
there would be such a thing as an artist's colorman. And yet, without any white, my absurd little
pictures would be as pointless as the world would be if there were no good people in it. I stared
stupidly round, racking my brain for expedients. Then I suddenly stood up and roared with
laughter, again and again, so that the cows stared at me and called a committee. Imagine a man in
the Sahara regretting that he had no sand for his hour-glass. Imagine a gentleman in mid-ocean
wishing that he had brought some salt water with him for his chemical experiments. I was sitting
on an immense warehouse of white chalk. The landscape was made entirely of white chalk.
The fact that “white chalk was piled more miles until it met the sky” is both literal--the white cliffs
of Dover do meet the sky--and figurative. The earth represents material reality, or physical
existence; it is the world inhabited by humanity. The sky, on the other hand, symbolizes heaven,
the transcendent abode of God. Through chalk, or virtue, the two are united. By creative, virtuous
acts, human beings exercise a similar act of creation such as that of God, whose love for moral
behavior, mercy, virtue, and chastity is the essential passion of his own essence, or character, his
own Spirit, out of which he created both “roses” and “stars” and the “good people” of the earth.
England is not entirely made up of white chalk, however; only “Southern England” is composed
of this substance; God is himself the white chalk, of which England is “a piece.” However, to the
extent that England is made of white chalk, it participates in the virtue that is essential to God’s
own character and is, as such, a force for goodness in the world, and perhaps an instrument through
which God continuously sustains his creation’s goodness in and through “good people” and human
institutions: “And I stood there in a trance of pleasure, realizing that this Southern England is not
only a grand peninsula, and a tradition and a civilization; it is something even more admirable. It
is a piece of chalk.” Chesterton’s narrator suggests that it is one’s character, which is given to him
or her by God that is an individual’s essence. This essence, in turn, determines one’s “point of
view,” or worldview and outlook on life. A person’s “point of view” determines the sense of
purpose that he or she has regarding existence, including the existence of him- or herself and
others, and the manner in which he or she relates to the rest of the world. The narrator shows two
possibilities for such essences, viewpoints, senses of purpose, and relationships, that of the
conventional, practical, unimaginative, but generous, and prosaic homeowner (an ordinary, or
natural, person) and that of her opposite, the unconventional, romantic and idealistic, imaginative,
and poetic narrator (a Christian).
3. On Running After One’s Hat by G.K.
In On Running after One’s Hat by G.K. Chesterton we have the theme of escape, embarrassment
and acceptance. Taken from his On Running after One’s Hat and Other Whimsies collection the
reader realizes after reading the essay that Chesterton may be exploring the theme of escape. For
Chesterton it is easier to imagine himself acting as a child might do when it comes to matters of
inconvenience. He believes that a person will be happier should they change their outlook or view
life through the lens of a child when encountering inconvenience. Not only will an individual
remain calm but they will treat each inconvenience as an adventure. Just as a child might.
Chesterton using the young boy at the train station as an example. The boy does not frown upon
the fact that train is late. Rather he sees everything at the station as being wonderfully exciting.
Though Chesterton may have a point it might be important to remember that many people will
encounter difficulty looking at life through the lens of a child. Embarrassment will overtake them
and they will feel isolated from the world. As many people who have chased their hats might feel.
It is this embarrassment that an individual feels which will stop an individual chasing their hat as
they know that those onlookers who notice what is happening are laughing at the individual rather
than with them. Something that Chesterton does not mention in the essay. For Chesterton life is
simply better when society drops its guard and allows for the individual to be themselves without
being overtly criticized by society. However the reality in life is very much different. Society likes
to laugh at the mishaps that occur in an individual’s life. It helps society to deflect away from its
own problems or worries. It is easier to laugh at another person than to reflect on one’s own
misfortunes. Something that will not change regardless of Chesterton’s assertion that it is good to
laugh at a man chasing a hat. One point in whereby Chesterton might be right is on the matter of
men chasing after women. Though this in itself may be deemed by some to be ridiculous. It is
nonetheless acceptable to society. So as such it does not merit the same attention for others. People
will notice a man chasing his hat quicker than they will notice a man chasing a woman down the
street.
Chesterton may also be suggesting that society should look closer at itself and realign itself with
his train of thought. Which would be a romantic view on life that is not necessarily productive.
Taking the flooding in London as an example. For Chesterton there is a degree of excitement.
However for those who live in London. The flooding of their homes may be something that could
be considered detrimental and costly. That is if an individual has the necessary funds to refurbish
and redecorate their home. For some rather than the flooding being romantic it could lead to
homelessness and poverty. Chesterton is looking at life through tinted glasses and not really being
honest with the reader. Flooding causes tremendous damage and hardship for some and it is
difficult to look at the devastation that flooding causes as being an adventure to be enjoyed. It is
also interesting that Chesterton is able to split himself into two separate camps. The outlook of a
child and the outlook of an adult. Though the reader is left wondering as to what might trigger
Chesterton to view life through the eyes of an adult.
If anything Chesterton simplifies situations in order to maintain a romantic view on life. Something
which may leave some readers to suggest that Chesterton is simply wrong on his outlook. Life
itself is not a simple matter and is in fact complicated by man himself. On the other hand
Chesterton’s outlook does have some validity and may be of benefit to people. Life can be much
simpler and less annoying should an individual be positive in their outlook regardless of the
mishaps they may incur. A positive mind will rectify a negative situation quicker than a negative
mind will. In reality a person with a positive mind is difficult to defeat. Although maintaining
positivity when facing negativity can be difficult. Something that Chesterton does not admit to nor
does he see it as being important. For Chesterton positivity is something that an individual can
immediately switch on. The case of Chesterton’s friend and the drawer being an example.
Chesterton simply isn’t being practical though his romantic view on life is admirable. However as
mentioned Chesterton may be looking at things through tinted glasses or from a distance. He
himself has not mentioned as to whether he struggles when it comes to admitting to running after
his hat. Chesterton has chosen to look outward rather than inward. Something that society itself
does.