The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 01

by William Cowper Brann

Of course, in sloshing around over so wide a field, Mr. Talmage gave his hearers his truly valuable opinion of Mohammedanism. He admitted that it is a religion of cleanliness, sobriety and devotion; but the fact that its founder had four wives caused him to sweat in agony. Polygamy, according to Mr. Talmage, "blights everything it touches." Those who practice it are, he is quite sure, the enemies of womankind. Is it not a trifle strange that from so foul a root should spring such a celestial plant as the Christian religion? that from the loins of a polygamous people should come an immaculate Christ? How can we mention Abraham, Isaac and Jacob without a curse, or think of a God whose teachings they followed, without horror—unless indeed we take issue with the public and vote Mr. Talmage an ass of the longest-eared variety.

Mr. Talmage is quite sure that God was on the side of the allies at the Battle of Waterloo; that he was on the side of the Russians during the French invasion. Mr. Talmage does not take it upon himself to explain, however, how the Deity chanced to be on the other side at Marengo and Austerlitz! No wonder that war is a risky business, if the God of battle changes his allegiance so erratically and without apparent provocation! Mr. Talmage should advise the government to cease expending money for ironclads and coast fortifications. In case of a foreign complication it were "all day with us" if the Autocrat of the Universe were swinging a battle-ax against us; while if we chanced to have him with us, we could send Baby McKee out with the jawbone of a hen, and put the armies of the world to shame!

Mr. Talmage should retire to some secluded spot and make a careful analysis of his sermons before firing them out to the press. They may sound all right in the big tabernacle, where a great volume of noise is the chief desideratum; but they make very poor reading. Like a flapjack, they may tickle the palate when served hot and with plenty of "sop"; but when allowed to grow cold are stale, flat and unprofitable.

Mr. Talmage is troubled with a diarrhoea of words and should take something for it. Perhaps the best possible prescription would be a long rest,—of a couple of centuries or so. How in God's name the American people ever became afflicted with the idea that he is a great man, is a riddle which might make Oedipus cudgel his wits in vain. He is not even a skillful pretender, shining like the moon, by borrowed light,—for he does not shine at all. His sentences are neither picturesque, dramatic nor wise. His so-called "sermons" are but fragmentary and usually ignorant allusions to things in general. He seldom or never encroaches upon the realms of science and philosophy, although he frequently attempts it, and evidently imagines that he is succeeding admirably, when he is but sloshing around, like a drunken comet that is chiefly tail, in inane limboes.

I can find no other explanation of Mr. Talmage's distinction than that, like Elliott F. Shepard, he can be more kinds of a fool in a given time than any other man in his profession. That were indeed distinction enough for one man, well calculated to cause the world to stand agaze! Notoriety and fame have, in this age, become synonymous if not exactly the same. The world gauges greatness by the volume of sound which the aspirant for immortal honors succeeds in setting afloat, little caring whether it be such celestial harp-music as caused Thebe's walls to rise, or the discordant bray of the ram's horn which made Jericho's to fall, and Mr. Talmage is emphatically a noise-producer. From the lecherous, but learned and logical Beecher to the gabbling inanity now doing the drum-major act, is a long stride.

* * * NUDE ART AT CHICAGO.

Now the very Old Nick is to pay at the World's Fair, and an exasperating stringency in the money market. The great "uncultured West" is flocking to Chicago to see the show, and is seeing more than it bargained for. Its modest cheek has been set aflame by the exuberant display of the nude in art. And the West is kicking, kicking with both feet, kicking like a bay steer who has a kick coming and knows how to recalcitrate. The culchawed East and blase Yewrup look on with mild astonishment and wondah what ails the bawbarians, doncher know.

We learn from our Chicago correspondent that the great buildings are liberally adorned with "figures of nude men of heroic size, not a detail of which has escaped the loving care of the fin de siecle sculptors. Elsewhere the examples of the nude represent both sexes." Yet the East wonders that the West is shocked,—cannot understand why "wives drag their husbands away and young ladies leave the building with faces ablaze with indignation!" Our correspondent volunteers the information that "a much severer test of the patience of the Western people will come when the art palace is opened"; also that "the treatment the Western people are getting is drastic and cruel, but it will work wonders in cultivating and refining them."

We beg leave to dissent from the conclusion. We hardly think that any of our readers will accuse us of prudery. We are willing to concede special privileges to art. Its province is to portray the beautiful, and the most beautiful thing on all God's earth is a perfect female form. The painter or sculptor who loves his art may be permitted to reproduce in modest pose a naked female figure; but he should not be allowed to force it upon the attention of a mixed multitude. Let him place it where it will only be seen by those who seek it. A man may take his mother, wife,—even his sweetheart to look upon such work of art, and they may be better, purer, nobler for having worshiped at the shrine of beauty; but to compel them to stand before it with a mixed multitude to most of whom it suggests but grossest sensuality, is a brutal crime against modesty. So much for the female nude.

What man would take a woman near and dear to him to look upon a nude male statue or painting,—"not a detail of which has escaped the loving care" of the artist? Certainly few Western or Southern men would do so! Worship of the beautiful may pardon the nude female figure, but the nude male figure never. Hercules nude is but an animal, and Apollo a nightmare. To place nude male figures indiscriminately about the great Fair buildings, where they must be seen by modest maids, whether they will or no, and that while insolent strangers enjoy their confusion, is the very apotheosis of brutality.