A PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.
(Fragments of a Discourse, delivered under the similitude of a Dream, but of symbolic and purely secular significance.)
Now, at the end of this Valley of Obstruction was another, called the Valley of the Shadow of Disunion; and the Pilgrim must needs go through it, because the way to the Plain of Progress and the Pinnacle of Passage lay through the midst of it.
Now this Valley is a very perilous place,—a place where none care to dwell, and which few attain to pass through. And here the Pilgrim was worse put to it than in his previous encounter with the Apollyon of Obstruction.
I saw then in my dream that when the Pilgrim was got to the borders of the Shadow of Disunion, there met him certain men, aforetime his fellow-travellers, making haste to go back; to whom the Pilgrim spake as follows:—-
Pilgrim. Whither are you going?
Men. Back again! And we would have you do so too, if either life, peace, or honour is prized by you.
Pilgrim. Why, what's the matter?
Men. Matter? We were going that way as you are going, and went as far as we durst; and indeed we were almost past coming back.