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
In my personal dealings with Mr. Brann I found him a
person of almost feminine fineness. It was amusing to
meet him after some particularly atrocious issue of the
ICONOCLAST, either personally or by letter, and have him
"roar as gently as a sucking dove." In such moods he
revealed a character that was really sweet--though I must
apologize for that misused word. He was impressed with
the pity of life. He loved to toy intellectually with
subtleties of thought. He had intuitions in art and poetry,
and music touched him truly and deeply. I never have seen
such a gentle man with women and his estimate of woman,
either in conversation or writing, was a high and noble one.
If at times he wrote so that his conception of virtuous
womanhood was unpleasantly associated with ideas that
revolted you, it was his peculiar belief that purity was all
the purer for the contrast and antithesis. He loved
children, too, and in his more familiar moods, according
to his intimates, he was like one whose heart was as a little
child. He cared no more for money after he began to
make it than he cared in his bohemian days when he was
readier to give than to take. He loved his friends blindly.
He did not hate his enemies, he despised them. He had
all the manly virtues, courage, generosity, modesty. Yes,
modesty; for egoism such as he had was not foolish pride.
His egotism was only his own force asserting itself. His
friendship was almost foolish. He praised too generously.
He was inclined to help everybody he could and I am sure
that he never assailed anyone or anything that did not
represent to him uncharity and snobbery. He was not
envious. His mind was on the Texas scale; he knew no
meanness. His was Kentucky origin and he was tainted
with Kentucky's quixotism. He loved liberty and he
loved love. He was the friend of the people as he dreamed
they should be. He was the advocate of the greatest
enlargement of rights. With little of what he strove for in
immediate political issues did I sympathize. He believed
more in what is called socialism than I do, but he believed
it most earnestly. He was the greatest force in this
country, with his 80,000 issues of his magazine per month,
for all the things that go with free silver. His following
included all the thinking followers of Bryan and his work
had no little effect, in its powerful music and color, upon
many people to whom Bryanism represented the political
abomination of desolation.
. . .
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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