The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 01Brann, William Cowper
General
The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 01
Brann, William Cowper
Brann, William Cowper, 1855-1898; Essays; Reformers
occasion for further delay. Do not swoop down upon the
health germs like a hungry hen-hawk on a green gosling,
but incline your head gently until your carefully deodorized
breath is upon her lips--there pause, for the essence
of enjoyment is in anticipation. The man who gulps down a
glass of old wine without first inhaling its oenanthic and
feasting his eyes upon its ruddy splendors, is simply a sot.
Wait until you have noted the dark lashes lying upon the
cheek of sun-flushed snow, "the charm of married brows,"
the throat of alabaster, the dimple in her chin, the wine-tint
of her half-parted lips with their glint of pearl--wait until her
eyes half-open, look inquiringly into yours, and close again,
then cincture her gently but firmly with one arm, support her
chin with the other hand, and give the health germs ample
time to change their home. A kiss to have any scientific
value, should last one minute and seven seconds by
Shrewsbury clock, and be repeated seven times, not in
swift succession, but with the usual interval between wine
at a symposiac. Byron did these things differently, but the
author of "Don Juan" is not a safe example for young folks
to follow. He pictures Mars lying with his head in the lap of
Venus,
"Feeding on thy sweet cheek, while thy lips are
With lava-kisses melting while they burn,
Shower'd on his eyelids, brow and mouth as from an urn."
That may be eminently satisfactory to Mars, but scarce
proper for Venus. It is exciting, but not scientific. It
suggests charity children gorging themselves with plum-
pudding, rather than poetic natures drunken with beauty;
and fragrance, swooning 'neath the sweetness of a duet
sung by their own chaste souls. The dyspeptic who cannot
recover by following my prescription deserves to die. The
pessimist whom it doesn't make look at life through rose-
tinted glasses, should be excluded from human society.
The hypochondriac whom it doesn't help ought to be
hanged. There is not a human ill--unless it be hypocrisy--
for which nature does not provide a remedy, and I
recommend the health germ which builds its nest on
lovely woman's lips as worth more than the whole materia
medica. I don't know whether it will raise the dead, but I've
always doubted the story that Egypt kissed the cold lips of
her Roman Antony--have suspected it would have brought
me back to life and love had I been dead a month. The
unscientific catch-as-catch-can kiss has no more beneficial
effect than slapping yourself in the face with a raw beef-
steak. It is but a slight improvement on the civilization of
Ashantee, where a man proposes marriage by knocking his
Dulcina down with a club and dragging her through the
backwoods' pasture by the hair of her head; but kisses
properly taken--beneath the stars and among the roses--are
the perennial fount of youth for which Ponce de Leon sailed
far seas in a vain search for the blessed Bimini.
* * *
THE NEW SOUTH.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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