Cambridge Sketches by Frank Preston Stearns
page 76 of 267 (28%)
page 76 of 267 (28%)
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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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