read it aloud to Cranch and a friend who was with him.

[Footnote: Both mentioned in Hawthorne's Notebook.]

Cranch could never understand this, for it was the last thing he would
have done himself without an invitation; but he enjoyed the reading, and
often referred to it.

When he returned to America in 1863 he went to live on Staten Island in
order to be near George William Curtis, who cared for him as Damon did
for Pythias, and who served to counteract the ill-omened influence of
Cranch's brother-in-law. The Century Club purchased one of his pictures,
an allegorical subject, which I believe still hangs in their halls. From
1873 to 1877 Lowell would seem to have frequented Cranch's house in
preference to any other in Cambridge.

When Cranch first went to live there he occupied a small but sunny and
otherwise desirable house on the westerly side of Appian Way,--a name
that amused him mightily,--but in 1876 he purchased the house on the
southwestern corner of Ellery and Harvard Streets. Having arranged his
household goods there he sent one of his own paintings as a present to
Emerson in order to renew their early acquaintance. Emerson responded to
it by a characteristic note, in which he said that his son and daughter,
who were both good artists, had expressed their approval of his present.
He then referred to the danger which arises from a multiplicity of
talents, and said: "I well recollect how you made the frogs vocal in the
ponds back of Sleepy Hollow."

Cranch did not feel that this was very complimentary, but a few days
later there came an invitation for Mr. and Mrs. Cranch to spend the day