Arguing for Essays: I have been guilty of cruelty to vegetables

Essay: to test the value or nature of a thing; to try something for the first time; to make a tentative attempt. I've come to appreciate essays this summer as short morsels, humorous or thought-provoking musings on a subject. At only two or three pages long, what's not to love?

Recently, I've been enjoying the essays of G.K. Chesterton (mentioned often as one of the key influences on C.S. Lewis). Here are some of my favorite bits that make the argument for essays better than I ever could:

"A dream is scarcely ever rounded to express faultlessly some faultless idea. An angel might indeed open a scroll before the dreamer, but it would probably be inscribed with some remark about excursion trains to Brighton; a knight in armour might ride by him, but it would be impossible to deny that the most salient fact about the warrior was the fact that he was wearing three hats....Dreams have a kind of hellish ingenuity and energy in the pursuit of the inappropriate." ("Dreams")

"I have been guilty of cruelty to vegetables." ("Some Policemen and a Moral")

"The whole pleasure of marriage is that it is a perpetual crisis." ("David Copperfield")

"The primary feeling that this world is strange and yet attractive is best expressed in fairy tales." ("The Flag of the World")

"What is the matter with the pessimist? I think it can be stated that he is the cosmic anti-patriot." ("The Flag of the World")

"...keep close to your heart, keep deep in your inner councils, the absurd people....let the laughable people whose faults you see and understand be the only people who are really inside your life, who really come near you or accompany you on your lonely march towards the last impossibility." ("David Copperfield")