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Yet fish there be, that neither hook nor line, Nor snare, nor net, nor engine can make thine: They must be groped for, and be tickled too, Or they will not be catch’d, whate’er you do.
How does the fowler seek to catch his game By divers means! all which one cannot name.
His guns, his nets, his lime-twigs, light and bell: He creeps, he goes, he stands; yea, who can tell Of all his postures. yet there’s none of these Will make him master of what fowls he please.
Yea, he must pipe and whistle, to catch this; Yet if he does so, that bird he will miss.
If that a pearl may in toad’s head dwell, And may be found too in an oyster-shell; If things that promise nothing, do contain What better is than gold; who will disdain, That have an inkling 2 of it, there to look, That they may find it. Now my little book, (Though void of all these paintings that may make It with this or the other man to take,) Is not without those things that do excel What do in brave but empty notions dwell.
“Well, yet I am not fully satisfied That this your book will stand, when soundly tried." Why, what’s the matter. “It is dark." What though.
“But it is feigned." What of that. I trow Some men by feigned words, as dark as mine, Make truth to spangle, and its rays to shine.
“But they want solidness." Speak, man, thy mind.
“They drown the weak; metaphors make us blind." Solidity, indeed, becomes the pen Of him that writeth things divine to men: But must I needs want solidness, because By metaphors I speak. Were not God’s laws, His gospel laws, in olden time held forth By types, shadows, and metaphors. Yet loth Will any sober man be to find fault With them, lest he be found for to assault The highest wisdom! No, he rather stoops, 2 Hint, whisper, insinuation.
6 John Bunyan Pilgrim's Progress
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