The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 12Brann, William Cowper
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The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 12
Brann, William Cowper
Brann, William Cowper, 1855-1898; Essays; Reformers
By God's grace, I mean not the kind you catch at camp-
meetings with sand-fleas, wood-ticks and other gifts of the
Holy Ghost; but rather an end everlasting to brummagem
and make-believe, a return to the Ark of the Covenant,
a recognition of that fact that the soul is not the stomach
--that a man owes debts to his fellows which cannot be
cast up at the end of the month and discharged with a
given number of dollars. Man was not made for himself
alone, but all were made for each and each for all. The
doctrine which now prevails of "every man for himself,"
is the dogma of the devil. It means universal war, shameful
wrong and brutal outrage--the strong become intolerable
tyrants, the weak go to the wall. It transforms
this beautiful world into a basket of adders, each biting,
hissing, striving to get its foolish head above its fellows.
If the Christian religion contained naught else of worth,
its doctrine of self-sacrifice should earn for it the respect
of every Atheist in the universe. Through the fogs of
ignorance and the clouds of superstition that enshrouded
the Biblical ages that touch of the divine shines like a
pilot star.
. . .
That Persian poet who prated of "the sorry scheme of
things" would deserve pity were he not beneath contempt.
He imagined that there was a screw loose in the universe
because his quest of pleasure slipped its trolley-pole and
could not make the bubble Joy to dance in Folly's cup.
Millions make continual moan that they are not happy
when they ought to be thankful that they are not hanged.
They shake their puny hands at heaven because not provided
with a terrestrial Paradise, when they ought to be
giving thanks that I'm not the party who holds the sea in
the hollow of his hand. I'd make good Baptists of the
whole caboodle--would hold them under water long enough
to soak out the original sin. A man complains because
Fortune doesn't empty her cornucopia into the pockets of
his pantalettes while he whittles a pine box and talks
municipal politics instead of humping himself behind an
enterprising mule in the cotton-patch. If his sweetheart
jilts him, he's in despair, and if she marries him he wishes
he were dead. He has the mulligrubs because he cannot
plant himself on a Congressional cushion, or because he
finds his wife awake and nursing a curtain lecture to keep
it warm when he falls through the front fence at 5 o'clock
in the morning. It seems never to have occurred to these
Werterian wailers that the happiest existence is that of
the lower animals--that the human being of fine brain and
keen sensibilities cannot possibly be content. It is this
very unrest, this heart-hunger that drives a man on to
noble deeds--that lifts him out of the gutter where wallow
the dull, dumb beasts and places him among the gods. Of
suffering and sorrow were born all life's beauty. The kiss
of Pyramus and Thisbe is an ecstasy of pain. The hope
of immortality sprang from breaking hearts. Nations rise
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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