"
Strange life! O utter barrenness of existence! A pipe, a fire, fish,
rags and a bed of straw. God pity thee! God pity thee, thou poor
stricken deer! Take heart, man, take heart! Be brave, and dash away the
bitter tear. Look up from the lowly cabin-door into the solemn night
with its golden-burning stars, and even the loosened harp-strings of
thy shattered old frame will vibrate and tremble to the eternal
melodies that thrill through the mystic All: "God is in his heaven."
Dickens and Hawthorne have each written of canal-life in America, the
one in a satirico-humorous way, the other sympathetically. People side
with one or the other according as their disposition is active and
restless or indolent and epicurean. I fight under the banner of
Hawthorne in defence of the canal. The following sketch of one of the
old picturesque Pennsylvania canals may be called a vignette, for it is
a fragment without definite border or setting. But admirers of Dickens
are respectfully requested to note that it is no mere fancy sketch of a
poetic mind, but was drawn from Nature, every bit of it.
The first and most novel sensation I experienced was that of the quiet
and seemingly mysterious gliding movement of the boat.
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