And he said to me, "This place cannot be mended, yet it is not the pleasure of the King that it should remain so bad. His laborers also have for more than sixteen hundred years been employed on this patch of ground, in the hope that it might perhaps be mended. There has been swallowed up here twenty thousand cartloads of the best material in the attempt to mend the place. But it is the Slough of Despond still; and still will be so, when they have done all they can. It is true that there are some good and strong steps even through the very midst of this mire. But men through the dizziness of their head miss the steps and so tumble into the mire, but the ground is good when they have once got in at the gate."
Then I saw in my dream that by this time Pliable was got home to his house. So his neighbors came to visit him, and some of them called him wise man for coming back, and some called him fool for going with Christian. Others again did mock at his cowardliness, saying, "Surely since you began to go, you need not have been so base as to have given out for a few difficulties." So Pliable sat like a coward among them.
Now as Christian was walking alone, he espied one afar off, come crossing over the field to meet him. The gentleman's name was Mr. Worldly Wiseman. He dwelt in a very great town, close by the one from which Christian came. This man, then, meeting with Christian, began thus to enter into some talk with him: "How now, good fellow, whither are you going in this burdened manner?"
"A burdened manner indeed," said Christian. "I am going, sir, to yonder Wicket-gate before me, for there, I am told, I shall be put into a way to be rid of my heavy burden."
"Hast thou a wife and children?" asked Mr. Worldly Wiseman.
"Yes, but I am so laden with this burden that I cannot take that pleasure in them as formerly."
"Will you hearken to me if I give thee counsel?"
"If it be good, I will, for I stand in need of good counsel."
"I would advise thee, then, that thou with all speed get thyself rid of thy burden, for thou wilt never be contented till then."
"That is what I seek for, even to be rid of this heavy burden, but get it off myself I cannot, nor is there any man living in our country who can take it off my shoulders. Therefore I am going this way, as I told you, that I may be rid of my burden."