God Loves Writers

God loves all artists. He is benevolent toward them, lavish with graces and kindnesses. Now, every art has its limitations. For example, dance cannot be enjoyed and appreciated by a blind person, nor music by someone deaf from birth.

In particular, the art of letters suffers from several limitations that keep its enjoyment from being universal. Let us set aside the terrible tyrant of spelling mistakes in the reprints and re-editions of a book. The need for translations into the different languages is without a doubt the greatest of these limitations, since there is no translation without treason. Let us add that language evolves and renews itself constantly, and a word that had one meaning at the beginning of the century is now used to name something different, often its antonym. Letters are not as universal as music, painting, architecture, or dance.

For this reason, and to make up to writers for all these sufferings and impairments in their art, the Creator saw fit to grant a wonderful grace to those who cultivate letters. Among all the arts, literature has been granted a favor that it alone enjoys.

This gift represents a great advantage, one that keeps us safe from the ravages that time causes in other arts—such as paintings, sculptures, and buildings—and also spares us the variations that new interpretations or performances may cause to the essence of the original—as in the case of dances and choreographies, or musical orchestrations. This gift consists in the fact that a literary work, once written, will remain the same in any time or place, that is, containing the same words, commas, accents, phrases, and sentences; the same succession of thoughts and comments, and the same exactness and fidelity, being a living sample of the talent and mastery (or lack of them) of the author; this in all copies, volumes, and reprints; in all times and in all places. The date of printing, the paper, or the ink does not matter. What is written will remain the same. Neither time nor the talent of editors will change it, except for errors in typesetting the text.

The beauty of a musical work will depend in great part on the fineness of the instrument and the mastery of the performer. A dance will depend on the talent and practice of the dancer, and will be different each time it is performed. A sculpture cannot be reproduced identically, retaining the same details. A painting may be photographed, but only the original will possess the qualities and textures that the artist imprinted on it with his brush. A work of architecture, such as the Sistine Chapel, cannot be reproduced to be scattered throughout the world in many copies. But a book can.

We writers enjoy the great benefit of being able to reproduce our works to infinity, preserving in each of the copies the very essence of the original. Since the original is nothing more than the first of the copies.