On taking Literature seriously

THE CASE FOR THE EPHEMERAL

Street Art Washington D.C.

"I cannot understand the people who take literature seriously; but I can

love them, and I do. Out of my love I warn them to keep clear of this

book. It is a collection of crude and shapeless papers upon current or

rather flying subjects; and they must be published pretty much as they

stand. They were written, as a rule, at the last moment; they were

handed in the moment before it was too late, and I do not think that our

commonwealth would have been shaken to its foundations if they had been

handed in the moment after. They must go out now, with all their

imperfections on their head, or rather on mine; for their vices are too

vital to be improved with a blue pencil, or with anything I can think

of, except dynamite.

Their chief vice is that so many of them are very serious; because I had

no time to make them flippant. It is so easy to be solemn; it is so hard

to be frivolous. Let any honest reader shut his eyes for a few moments,

and approaching the secret tribunal of his soul, ask himself whether he

would really rather be asked in the next two hours to write the front

page of the  Times, which is full of long leading articles, or the

front page of  Tit-Bits, which is full of short jokes. If the reader

is the fine conscientious fellow I take him for, he will at once reply

that he would rather on the spur of the moment write ten  Times

articles than one  Tit-Bits  joke. Responsibility, a heavy and cautious

responsibility of speech, is the easiest thing in the world; anybody can

do it. That is why so many tired, elderly, and wealthy men go in for

politics. They are responsible, because they have not the strength of

mind left to be irresponsible. It is more dignified to sit still than to

dance the Barn Dance. It is also easier. So in these easy pages I keep

myself on the whole on the level of the  Times: it is only occasionally

that I leap upwards almost to the level of  Tit-Bits." 

(ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, G. K. CHESTERTON)