SOURCE: "Hazlitt's 'On the Fear of Death': Reason Versus Imagination," in Wordsworth Circle, Vol. 15, No. 1, Winter, 1984, pp. 3-7.

In the following essay, Albrecht examines the dialectic of reason versus imagination that characterizes William Hazlitt's "On the Fear of Death," in which he concludes that fear of death can best be allayed by setting "a just value on life. "

In February, 1822, Hazlitt had come to Scotland for a divorce in hope of marrying Sarah Walker. While staying at the Renton Inn, Berwickshire, he wrote eleven essays intended for the second volume of Table-Talk. Early in March, in a letter to P.G. Patmore, he listed the essays, nine already written and two more soon to be completed. He also told Patmore that this work had been done "magnificently."¹ We can agree, I think, that Hazlitt had reason to be well satisfied. P.P. Howe calls "the month at Renton...