ags, standing in a certain place, with his
face from his own house, a Book in his hand, and a great burden
upon his back. I looked, and saw him open the Book, and read
therein; and, as he read, he wept and trembled; and not being able
longer to contain, he broke out with a lamentable cry, saying "what
shall I do?"

The same impression of reality pervades the whole work. Christian's
sins take an actual form in the burden on his back. Every personage
whom he meets on his journey, and every place through which he passes
appears to the mind of the reader with the vividness of actual
experience. The child or the laborer reads the "Pilgrim's Progress" as
a record of adventures undergone by a living man; the scholar forgets
the art which has raised the picture before his mind, in a sense of
contact with the subject portrayed. This is the triumph of a great
genius, and it is a triumph to which no other writer has attained to
the same degree. Other allegorists have pleased the fancy or gratified
the understanding, but Bunyan occupies at once the imagination, the
reason and the heart of his reader. Defoe's power of giving life to
fictitious scenes and personages has not been surpassed by that of any
other novelist. But Defoe's scenes and characters were of a nature
familiar to his readers, and therefore easily realized. In the
"Pilgrim's Progress," strange and unreal regions become well-known
places, and moral qualities distinct human beings. Evangelist, who puts
Christian on the way to the Wicked Gate; Pliable, who deserts him at
the first difficulty; Help, who pulls him out of the Slough of Despond;
Mr. Worldly Wiseman, who shows him an easy way to be rid of his burden,
are all life-like individuals. Timorous, Talkative, Vain Confidence,
Giant Despair, are not mere personifications, but distinct human beings
with whom every reader of the "Pilgrim's Progress" feels an intimate
acquaintance. Not less real is the impression produced by the various
scenes through which the journey of Christian conducts him. The Slough
of Despond, the Wicket Gate, the House of the Interpreter, the Hill
Difficulty, have been familiar localities to many generations of men,
who have watched Christian's struggle with Apollyon in the Valley of
Humiliation, and followed his footsteps as they trod the Valley of the
Shadow of Death, as they passed through the dangers of Vanity Fair,
and brought him at last to the Celestial City, and the