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THE AUTHOR’S APOLOGY FOR HIS BOOK WHEN at the first I took my pen in hand Thus for to write, I did not understand That I at all should make a little book In such a mode: nay, I had undertook To make another; which, when almost done, Before I was aware I this begun.
And thus it was: I, writing of the way And race of saints in this our gospel-day, Fell suddenly into an allegory About their journey, and the way to glory, In more than twenty things which I set down This done, I twenty more had in my crown, And they again began to multiply, Like sparks that from the coals of fire do fly.
Nay, then, thought I, if that you breed so fast, I’ll put you by yourselves, lest you at last Should prove ad infinitum, 1 and eat out The book that I already am about.
Well, so I did; but yet I did not think To show to all the world my pen and ink In such a mode; I only thought to make I knew not what: nor did I undertake Thereby to please my neighbor; no, not I; I did it my own self to gratify.
Neither did I but vacant seasons spend In this my scribble; nor did I intend But to divert myself, in doing this, From worser thoughts, which make me do amiss.
Thus I set pen to paper with delight, And quickly had my thoughts in black and white; For having now my method by the end, Still as I pull’d, it came; and so I penned It down; until it came at last to be, For length and breadth, the bigness which you see.
Well, when I had thus put mine ends together 1 Without end.
4 John Bunyan Pilgrim's Progress
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