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Cambridge Sketches by Frank Preston Stearns
page 76 of 267 (28%)
hardly be said to have had a habitation of his own. He extended his
migration as minister-at-large from Bangor, Maine, to Louisville,
Kentucky. His varied accomplishments made him attractive to the younger
members of the parishes for which he preached, but he never remained long
enough in one place for their interest to take root.

The wave of German thought and literary interest was now sweeping over
England and America. Repelled by doctors of divinity and the older class
of scholars, it was seized upon with avidity by the more susceptible
natures of the younger generation. Its influence was destined to be felt
all through the coming period of American literature. C. P. Cranch was
affected by it, as Emerson, Longfellow and even Hawthorne, were affected
by it. This, however, did not take place at once, and when Emerson's
"Nature" was published, Cranch was at first repelled by the peculiarity
of its style. At the house of Rev. James Freeman Clark, in Cincinnati, he
drew some innocently satirical illustrations of it. One was of a man with
an enormous eye under which he wrote: "I became one great transparent
eye-ball"; and another was a pumpkin with a human face, beneath which was
written: "We expand and grow in the sunshine." In another sketch Emerson
and Margaret Fuller were represented driving "over hill and dale" in a
rockaway.

[Footnote: Sanborn's Life of Alcott.]

He would make these humorous sketches to entertain his friends at any
time, seizing on a half-sheet of paper, or whatever might be at hand; but
he did not long continue to caricature Emerson. His first volume of
poetry, published in 1844, was dedicated to Emerson, and in Dwight's
"Translations from Goethe and Schiller," there are a number of short
pieces by Cranch, almost perfect in their rendering from German to
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