forgotten and the local animosities that Brann brewed in his
own State live only in the memories of a few old men.

With the roll of the years, the perspective of time, like a low
swung sun, casts the mountain's shadow ever farther
across the valley; and Brann the Waco journalist has
become Brann the American genius. No matter how dead
the issues, how local to time and place the characters of
which he wrote, his writing is literature and the imperishable
legacy of the world.

The Biblical story of Joseph would be equally great if his
name had been Fu Chow, and Pharaoh had been the
Emperor Wu Wong Wang. Hamlet would be immortal if his
name were L. Percy Smith and his uncle a pork packer in
Omaha. The prodigal son has no name, the swine he fed
knew no country. Particular names, local places, and
passing forms and institutions are not the essence of
literature. For those who formerly read Brann in The
Iconoclast he was a Texas journalist in the free silver
days; but for those who shall read his work in these days
after the world war, New York might as well be Babylon,
Mark Hanna, Haman, and the files of The Iconoclast,
clay tablets dug from the ruins of some long-buried Waco of
the Euphrates Valley.

It is only the transcendent genius who can afford to be
careless of the preservation of his product. Socrates
merely talked to chance disciples in the Groves of
Athens; other men wrote and preserved his words.