mine, melting into that captivating laugh of his,
which was the brightest and best I have ever heard."

CHAPTER XXII.

CANAL-BOAT JOURNEYS: BOUND FAR WEST.

1842.

Character in the Letters--The _Notes_ less
satisfactory--Personal Narrative in Letters--The
Copyright Differences--Social
Dissatisfactions--A Fact to be
remembered--Literary Merits of the
Letters--Personal Character portrayed--On Board
for Pittsburgh--Choicest Passages of
_Notes_--Queer Stage-coach--Something revealed
on the Top--At Harrisburg--Treaties with
Indians--Local Legislatures--A Levee--Morning
and Night in Canal-boat--At and after
Breakfast--Making the best of it--Hardy
Habits--By Rail across Mountain--Mountain
Scenery--New Settlements--Original of Eden in
_Chuzzlewit_--A Useful Word--Party in
America--Home News--Meets an Early
Acquaintance--"Smallness of the World"--Queer
Customers at Levees--Our Anniversary--The
Cincinnati Steamer--Frugality in Water and
Linen--Magnetic
Experiments--Life-preservers--Bores--Habits of
Neatness--Wearying for Home--Another Solitary
Prison--New Terror to Loneliness--Arrival at
Cincinnati--Two Judges in Attendance--The City
described--On the Pavement.

It would not be possible that a more vivid or exact impression than that
which is derivable from these letters could be given of either the
genius or the character of the writer. The whole man is here in the
supreme hour of his life, and in all the enjoyment of its highest
sensations. Inexpressibly sad to me has been the task of going over
them, but the surprise has equaled the sadness. I had forgotten what was
in them. That they contained, in their first vividness, all the most
prominent descriptions of his published book, I knew. But the
reproduction of any part of these was not permissible here; and,
believing that the substance of them had been thus almost wholly
embodied in the _American Notes_, when they were lent to assist in its
composition, I turned to them with very small expectation of finding
anything available for present use. Yet the difficulty has been, not to
find, but to reject; and the rejection when most unavoidable has not
been most easy. Even where the subjects recur that are in the printed
volume, there is a freshness of first impressions in the letters that