The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 12

by William Cowper Brann

Do not interpret too literally. What I warn you against is the habit, all too common, of imagining ourselves rich because we have counted the golden hoard of others. One may admire the Medicean Venus without becoming a sculptor, or have Plato at his fingers' ends and ever remain a fool. Were I an artist I would study with attention the works of all the great masters; but when I put my hand to my own task I would turn my back upon them all and my face to nature. My work would then be a "creation," not a copy. Did I aspire to be truly learned I would study the words of the world's wisest—then dig for wisdom on my own behoof, I would thus become a philosopher instead of a parrot.

. . .

I have been frequently called an iconoclast, and bad as the title is popularly supposed to be, I trust it is not altogether undeserved. I have striven to break foolish idols and shatter false ideals, to hurl unclean gods from their pedestals in the public pantheon. A work of destruction is not, I admit, of a high order. Anybody may destroy; it requires genius to build up. The wonder of the ancient world sank to ruin irremediable beneath the torch of a morbid dude who had rather be "damned to everlasting fame" than altogether forgotten. A hungry wolf may destroy a human life which Almighty God has brought to perfection through long years of labor. But destruction is sometimes necessary. The seas must be cleared of pirates before commerce can flourish; the antiquated and useless building must come down before the school- house or business block can occupy the site. In the great cities are men who do nothing but destroy old buildings— professional wreckers of those works of man that have outlived their usefulness. They build nothing; but are they, therefore, to be condemned? So in the social world, a man may be a professional wrecker, without the constructive ability to build a political platform on a piecrate, and still be useful, indispensable. The wrecker of bad buildings does not contract to put good ones in their places; nor is the iconoclast under any obligation to find a heavenly grace for every false god that falls beneath his hammer, a saint for every sinner he holds up to scorn, a new truth for every old falsehood he fells to earth. He may, if he thinks proper, leave that labor to others and go on, with brand and bomb, bludgeon and bill-hook, wrecking, destroying—playing John the Baptist to a greater to come after.

A great many good people have taken the trouble to inform me that I am a pessimist. Perhaps so; but I am not worrying much about it. A pessimist is a person somewhat difficult to define. The fool who smokes in a powder-house, or believes that his neighbors always speak well of him behind his back; the wife who encourages her husband to pay court to other women on the supposition that no harm can ensue; the banker who accepts a man's unsecured note because he is a church member and powerful in prayer, and the servant girl who lights the fire with kerosene—then goes to join the angels taking your household goods and gods with her—are certainly not pessimists; they are only idiots.

It is easy enough to say that a pessimist is a person afflicted with an incurable case of mulligrubs—one whom nothing in all earth or heaven or hades pleases; one who usually deserves nothing, yet grumbles if he gets it. But we should not forget that every reform this world has known; every effort that has lifted man another notch above the brute level; every star in our flag of freedom; every line and letter in our constitution of human liberty; every gem of knowledge that gleams in the great world's intellectual crown of glory; every triumph of science and religion, philosophy and mechanics was the work of pessimists, so-called—of men who were not satisfied with the world's condition and set determinedly to work to better it. They strove with their full strength against those conditions panegyrized and poetized by the smirking optimists of their time, and thereby incurred the enmity of pedants and self-sufficient purists,—were denounced and denied, belittled and belied.

But, says the enthusiastic optimist, things are not what they used to be. When a college of cardinals gave Galileo to the gaoler for maintaining that "the world do move;" when Christ cast forth the money manipulators and purged the porches of the temple of the disreputable dove dealers; when Luther raised the standard of revolt and the Puritan packed his grip there were cruel wrongs to right. But look at us now! We've got a constitution and a Confession of Faith, prize rings and Parisian gowns, sent missionaries to Madagascar and measured Mars' two moons. Of course we've made some mendicants, but please admire the multifarious beauty of our millionaires! Who can doubt that we've triumphed over the world, the flesh and the devil? Have not the Spanish inquisition and the English Court of High Commission gone glimmering? Do we bore the tongues of Quakers or amputate the ears of non-conformists as in Auld Lang Syne? Do we not run troublesome wives into the divorce court instead of into the river, as was once our wont,—scientifically roast our criminals with electricity instead of pulling their heads off with a hair halter? Do we not fight our political battles with wind instead of war clubs? Have not our great partisan paladins substituted gall for Greek fire?

Progressing we certainly are, but the devil has adapted the Fabian tactics and is leading us a wild dance through unprofitable deserts. While we have been shattering ethnic images he has been building new idols. While we have been dragging the Phalaris Bull from its pedestal the Golden Calf of ancient Israel has reached maturity and maternity and its progeny is now worshipped in a thousand pantheons.

Everywhere the false and the true, the good and the evil, the lambent light of heaven and the sulphurous shadows of hell meet and blend. Nowhere, yet everywhere, floats the white veil and flaming ensign of the modern Mokanna— and we stand wrangling about the proper cut of a collar; debating whether the Gadarenes, whose swine the outcast devils drowned, were Jews or Gentiles; dogmatizing anent the proper form of baptism; doubting with which hand we should tip the hat; wondering if Joseph's coat were a sack or a swallow-tail—ninety-and-nine out of every hundred wasting upon childish trifles the strength given us to do the work of demi-gods—and every foolish breath, every heartbeat bearing us across Time's narrow sands into the broad bosom of that sea which hath no shore!

What does the all-seeing sun that has for so many centuries glared down upon this wretched farce-tragedy, think of it all? And yet man boasts that he is the mortal image of immortal God! It was for this trifling, straddling biped, intent only upon getting his goose-head above the foolish geese, that the Regent of the universe suffered ignominy and death. I sometimes think that had the Almighty cast the human horoscope he would never have given Noah a hint to go in out of the wet.

I am no perfectionist. I do not build the spasmodic sob nor spill the scalding tear because all men are not Sir Galahads in quest of the Holy Grail, and all women angels with two pair o' reversible wings and the aurora borealis for a hat-band. I might get lonesome in a world like that. I do not expect to see religion without cant, wealth without want, and virtue without vice; but I do hope to see the human race devote itself to grander aims than following the fashions and camping on the trail of the cart- wheel dollar. I want to see more homes and fewer hovels, more men and fewer dudes. I want to see more women with the moral courage to brave the odium of being old maids rather than the pitiful weakness to become loveless wives. I want to see more mothers who would rather be queens of their homes than the favorites of fashionable circles; women who would rather have the love of their husbands than the insolent admiration of the whole he-world—women who do not know too much at 15 and too little at 50.