SOURCE: "Hazlitt's Worshiping Practice in Liber Amoris" in Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. 35, No. 4, Autumn, 1995, pp. 707-21.

In the following essay, Gross argues that Liber Amoris "reveals the growth of [Hazlitt's fetishistic imagination," which both fueled his creative sensibilities and helped refine his theory of religious practice.]

[A]nd I will make a Goddess of her, and build a temple to her in my heart, and worship her on indestructible altars, and raise statues to her: and my homage shall be unblemished as her unrivalled symmetry of form.

Liber Amoris (9:133)

William Hazlitt's infatuation with a lodging-house girl has caused almost as much pain to his recent literary commentators as it did to him.¹ Various writers on Hazlitt have expressed their outrage at an event in his life which seems to have no place in his literary career.² Henry Crabb Robinson called Liber Amoris "disgusting," Richard Le Gallienne...