The Dispatch. [volume] (Provo City, Utah) 1891-1895, 1891-01-21

Queen to his belief in the existence Of
a Western world, who can doubt that
the cOurtieTs and lords in attendance
upon Ferdinand and Isabella consider
ed the friendlesS Genoese as d crank
of the most pronounced type. and even
as not wholly sane? When Calico dared
to dispute the almost universally
accepted Ptolemaic theory. and to an
nounce that the earth revolved around
the sun and not the sun around the
earth, we all know that he was not
only called a crank, but that the drum
ecclesiastic was beaten against him,
and that he Nas compelled to m Ike a
formal recantatiOn ofhis heresy. When
Sir Richard Grenyiie. in the days of
Elizabeth. fought his single ship
against. seine seventy Spanish men-Of
war, and when finally beaten insisted
that his gunner Shou!dblow up the YES
sci sooner than allow her to fall into
the hands of tie enemies of his ceun-
try. he was a crank, pure and simple;
and yet the world will rot willingly
forget such examples of courage and
determination, however unaYailing
they may have been.
Among literary men there have been
more cranks. perhaps, than in any
Otker one class. Scarcely writer of
genius, or even of the highest order of
talent, can be recalled who had not
some eccentricity or marked peculiar
ity which placed him in the first rank
of ranks. Horace defined the whole
race Of writer's and authors as the oenHS
i7rdtdbile udtltn, which may be- freely
translated as "a tribe of cranks," and
time has fully vindicated the accuracy
of his classification. Every one is
familiar with the peculiarities of
Samuel johnson. whose eccentricitieS
often seemed to border upon insanity.
We all know how he used to touch
every post which he passed, going back
if he found he had omitted one; how
he rolled and twisted in his walk,
growing and muttering continually
to himself; how he ate more like hog
his repaSt with as many as twenty
seven cups of tea at setting: how, in
spite Of all this, he possessed one of
the acuteSt and most original minds
that the world has ever seen, and has
written things that will OutlaSt the
ages. But Dr.. johnson was most GER
tainly crank.
ByroR, too, when he insisted on
leaving England and casting in his
fortunes with struggling Greece, Was
doubtless called crank Shelley,
with his queer mixture Of ancient and
modern thought, his undiSguised
paganism and his contempt for con-
vemtionality and the usages of society,
must have come in the same category.
Burns. too, who preferred his indie
pendence to aught else, and who turn
ed from towns and cities to the freshly
ploughed fields and rushing streams,
was surely classed, by the good people
whom he would not hatter, as crank
Even cur own poet of the Sierra, when
he chose to wear his tawnY name on
his shoulders and TO affect bright-hued
cravats. WAS called crank. though
no one disputed his title OF poet.
But why attempt to extend the
category? Illustration without num-
Der will st cncc suggest themselves.
mHa7. doubtless. more nearly perfect
than the ones We have given. 1t is
enough to say that the multi iiication
of instances will only serve to add
force to the original proposition, that
the debt of the world to the so-called
cranks is one that can never be paid;
that the term crank is generally svn-
onymOus with men of genius or CT in
ventive ability; that too often envy or
spite is the moving cause for the indig-
nation; and that as between fools and
cranks the world could better dispense
with the former than with the latter-