The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 10Brann, William Cowper
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The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 10
Brann, William Cowper
Brann, William Cowper, 1855-1898; Essays; Reformers
One day, at Boulogne, she was on the ramparts, with companions,
when she saw Burton. She describes him raptuously; tall, thin,
muscular, very dark hair, black, clearly-defined, sagacious
eye-brows, a brown weather-beaten complexion, straight Arab
features, a determined looking mouth and chin. And then she
quotes a clever friend's description, "That he had the brow of a
God, the jaw of a Devil."
His eyes "pierced you through and through." When he smiled, he
did so "as though it hurt him." He had a "fierce proud melancholy
expression," and he "looked with contempt at things generally."
He stared at her, and his eyes looked her through and through.
She turned to a friend and said in a whisper, "That man will
marry ME." The next day they walked again. This time this man
wrote on the wall, "May I speak to you?" She picked up the chalk
and scrawled, "No, mother will be angry." A few days later they
met in formal manner, and were introduced. She started at the
name, Burton. Her naif rhapsodies on the meeting are refreshing.
One night he danced with her. She kept the sash and the gloves
she wore that night as sacred mementoes. Six years passed before
she saw her Fate again. He had been in the world though, and she
had kept track of his actions. In 1856 she met him in the
Botanical Gardens "walking with the gorgeous creature of
Boulogne--then married." They talked of things, particularly of
Disraeli's "Tancred." He asked her if she came to the Gardens
often. She said that she and her cousin came there every morning.
He was there next morning, composing poetry to send to
Monkton-Milnes. They walked and talked and did it again and
again. "I trod on air," wrote the lady in her old, old age. Why
not? She was one woman who had found a real hero. He asked her if
she could dream of giving up civilization, and of going to live
there if he could obtain the Consulate of Damascus. He told her
to think it over. She said, "I don't WANT to think it over--I've
been thinking it over for six years, ever since I first saw you,
at Boulogne, on the ramparts. I have prayed for you every day,
morning and night. I have followed all your career minutely. I
have read every word you ever wrote, and I would rather have a
crust and a tent with YOU than to be Queen of all the world. And
so I say now, yes, yes, yes." She lived up to this to the day of
his death, and long after it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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