Frank Preston Stearns, Cambridge Sketches

[122] use of holding up to a friend three thousand miles off such unsatisfactory statements, such dribblings and droppings? “Write what is uppermost,” says one at your elbow. Ah, if we could only say what is uppermost; as I sit down for instance to write (say this letter) I am caught into a sort of whirl of thoughts, in which it is impossible to say exactly what is foremost and what is hindmost. Then if I only attempt to narrate events, where am I to begin-so you see (I am theorizing about letters) a letter must be a sort of epitome of a friend's being and life or else nothing. Applying the theory to myself, finding myself unable to shut my genie in a box and carry him on my shoulders, I simply go and state that there is such a box with a genie supposed to be in it, lying at the custom-house, and here is the roughest sort of sketch of it, etc.

This is characteristic of the man. He lived largely in an atmosphere of poetic pleasantry, which served as an alleviation to his cares and as an attraction to his friends.

Cranch did not always succeed so well. He never became a mannerist, but there was too much similarity in his subjects, and the treatment too often bordered on the commonplace. Tintoretto said: “Colors can be bought at the paint-shop, but good designs are only obtained by sleepless nights and much reflection.” It is doubtful if Cranch ever laid awake over his