The Complete Works of Brann - The Iconoclast, vol 1 | Page 7

working on a novel at the
time of his death. That O. Henry's ambition to write may be accredited
to the influence of Brann seems more than probable. Brann's first
attempt to start The Iconoclast was made in Austin, Texas, but this first
paper survived for only a few issues.
O. Henry, then a drug clerk in Austin, being filled with literary

aspiration, bought the press and the name of The Iconoclast for $250;
but O. Henry's Iconoclast after two issues also ceased to flutter. Later,
when Brann again accumulated the necessary funds to permit him to
throw off the hireling's yoke, he asked for and received back from O.
Henry the legal right to the title of his own paper.
I relate this incident not to cast discredit upon O. Henry's originality.
His unique mastery of story structure was all his own, but that richness
of figurative speech, particularly those exaggerated humorous
metaphors which make his every paragraph so delightful, we may well
believe to be an Elijah's mantle fallen from the shoulders of Brann, and
worn over a new tunic.
Should any man create more than a rare few of the words he uses his
speech would be as meaningless as a doctor of theology explaining the
trinity. Likewise that subtle thing called "style," that revivifying of the
dead ashes of dictionary words, though more peculiar to the man, is
most potent when it borrows freely but wisely from all that has gone
before.
Stevenson read, and confessed to deliberate practice work in imitation
of, the masters that preceded him. So we know that Brann read,
absorbed, transmuted, and transfigured the style of the classic writers,
and added a daring measure of reckless originality. As Brann read his
Homer and his Carlyle, his Shakespeare and his Ingersoll, so Hubbard
and O. Henry read their Brann; and Hubbard specifically commends
him to the would-be writer as Johnson commended Addison.
There is no ore that will assay more literary metal to the page than
Brann. As a writer's writer no man of our time surpasses him. His
vocabulary is conceded, even by his most envious critics, to outrange
that of any other American. His gift of figurative speech--that essential
that distinguishes literature from mere correct writing--rivals that of
any writer in any country, language or time. Brann's compass of words,
idioms and phrases harks back to the archaic and reaches forward to the
futuristic.
If you wish merely to learn to appreciate literature so that you may nod
approval in polite society when an accredited writer's name is
mentioned, go to college and listen to the lectures of literary Ph. D.'s.
But if you want to learn to write, take your Bible, your Shakespeare
and your Brann and hie you to your garret, there to read, reread, study,

memorize, and imitate if you can. And God be praised if you can steal
the best and to it add somewhat of your own.
Brann offends, shocks and outrages, is suppressed, damned, forcibly
ignored and laboriously forgotten, because though the lark sings in his
words, "the buzzard is on the wing." But Brann did not make the stench
that offends the nostrils of the nice; he only stirred up the cesspools to
let us know that they were there, and so enlist volunteers for their
abatement. That riles the kept keepers of lesser fames because they
have agreed that the fine art of letters should be to spray the attar of
posies to counteract the noisome smells of that which is rotten in the
state of the world, where the many reek and sweat in filth and poverty
that the few may live in perfumed palaces.
Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin, shouted Brann and died shouting, while
the well-fed and fatted sat on the lid to keep it down. But we who have
lived to see the lid blown off Russia and feel the growl and grumble of
the bowels of all the earth need not overstrain our ears to hear Brann
laughing now in that good Baptist Hell to which a bullet in the back
gave him the passport.

POTIPHAR'S WIFE. STORY OF JOSEPH REVISITED
For more than six-and-thirty centuries the brand of the courtesan has
rested on the brow of Potiphar's wife. The religious world persists in
regarding her as an abandoned woman who wickedly strove to lead an
immaculate he-virgin astray. The crime of which she stands accused is
so unspeakably awful that even after the lapse of ages we cannot refer
to the miserable creature without a moan. Compared with her infamous
conduct old Lot's dalliance with his young daughters and David's
ravishment of Uriah's wife appear but venial faults, or even shine as
spotless virtues.
The story of Mrs. Potiphar's unrequited passion may be strictly true; but
if so