In a Canadian Canoe by Barry Pain

I think _Zeitgeist_ has grown lazy; I had meant to take it a long way to-day, but it simply stopped at the first shady spot it could find, and stretched itself there. One has to smoke a little brown tobacco to keep off the midges, but otherwise I do not mind much. I would not make use of my superior strength to force a tired boat to do more than it wanted to do. Besides, _Zeitgeist_ has earned some consideration. It has behaved excellently; in fact, it has almost been morbid in the politeness with which it has avoided running into other boats lately. Somebody, I see, has put a bottle of cider into the canoe. How thoughtless of him! There are a corkscrew and a drinking-horn as well. Perhaps it's all for the best.

The taste of cider should be full of associations. It should recall orchards in Devonshire; and rustic inns with porches, and honeysuckle, and earwigs; and the simple village maiden who got to be rather fond of the stranger artist, and cried a little in her simple village way when he went back again to civilisation. I am starving for dreamy poetry and pleasant memories this morning; I wish this cider had such beautiful associations for me. But it has not. To me cider is cider, and it is nothing more. I have never been in a Devonshire orchard; and I am not an artist; I have never drawn anything.