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
Having dealt candidly with Mr. Brann while living, I
will not now ignore the fact that he had faults, and his
inability to overcome these marred, here and there, the
splendor of his intellectual achievements. His faults,
though, were of a kind that may be permitted to pass into
the grave with his body. His virtues were many, and for
these he was loved, despite the imperfections he could not
always control. His services to mankind were numerous
and they were rendered with a devotion as ardent as that
of a lover; for these he will be remembered, nor can any
power rob him of his fame as a literary genius--a poet,
a humorist and a satirist.
Lectures and Addresses of Brann.
SPEAKING OF GALL.
Gall is a bitter subject, and I shall waste no time selecting
sweet words in which to handle it. There's no surplus
of sweet words in my vocabulary anyhow. I have
never yet been able to rent my mouth for a taffy mill.
Webster gives several definitions of Gall; but the good
old etymologist was gathered to his fathers long before
the word attained its full development and assumed an
honored place in the slang vernacular of the day. It was
needed. It fills what editors sometimes call a "long-felt
want." Gall is sublimated audacity, transcendent
impudence, immaculate nerve, triple-plated cheek, brass in
solid slugs. It is what enables a man to borrow five
dollars of you, forget to repay it, then touch you for twenty
more. It is what makes it possible for a woman to borrow
her neighbor's best bonnet, then complain because
it isn't the latest style or doesn't suit her particular type
of beauty. It is what causes people to pour their troubles
into the ears of passing acquaintances instead of reserving
them for home consumption. It is what makes a man
aspire to the governorship, or to air his asininity in the
Congress of the United States when he should be fiddling
on a stick of cordwood with an able-bodied buck-saw. It
is what leads a feather-headed fop, with no fortune but
his folly, no prospects but poverty--who lacks business
ability to find for himself bread--to mention marriage to
a young lady reared in luxury, to ask her to leave the
house of her father and help him fill the land with fools.
Gall is what spoils so many good ditchers and delvers to
make peanut politicians and putty-headed professional
men. It is what puts so many men in the pulpit who
could serve their Saviour much better planting the mild-
eyed potato or harvesting the useful hoop-pole. It is what
causes so many young ladies to rush into literature
instead of the laundry--to become poets of passion instead
of authors of pie.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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