The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 01Brann, William Cowper
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The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 01
Brann, William Cowper
Brann, William Cowper, 1855-1898; Essays; Reformers
Much has been written of Texas by immigration boomers,
"able editors" and others, with an eye single to the
almighty dollar. Its healthfulness, delightful climate,
undeveloped resources, churches, schools, etc., have
been expatiated upon times without number, but little has
been said of its transcendent beauty. The average "able
editor" is not a very aesthetic animal. He has an eye for
the beautiful, 'tis true; but his tastes are of the earth earthy.
A half-page display ad. with wood-cut portrait of a chamber-
set occupying the foreground and the clare-obscure worked
up with various sizes and styles of black type, possesses
far more charm for him than does the deep blue of our
Southern sky, whose mighty concave seems to reach to
Infinity's uttermost verge; a two-story brick livery stable or
laundry is to him far more interesting than the splendors of
the Day-god rising from the ocean's blue; an eighty-cent
dollar with its lying legend more beautiful in his eyes than
even Austin's violet crown bathed in the radiance of the
morning or arched with twilight's dome of fretted gold. The
"able editor" cares naught for purple hills, unless they
contain mineral; for broad champaigns unless the soil be
good; for flashing brooks unless they can be made to turn a
millwheel or water a cow.
The "able editor" takes it for granted that everybody is as
grossly materialistic as himself,--care not whether the sky
above their heads is blue or black so long as the soil
beneath their feet is fertile; whether the landscape be
pleasant or forbidding so long as it will yield them creature
comforts. Perhaps he is very nearly right. The fact that
millions will make their homes beneath leaden skies, amid
scenes of desolation, while there is room and to spare in
our sunny Southland, is not without its significance,--
indicates plainly that man has not yet progressed far into
that spiritual kingdom where the soul must be fed as well
as the stomach; where sunlight is more necessary than
sauer-kraut, where beauty furnishes forth more delights
than beer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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