We have
observed several pages which do not contain a single word of more
than two syllables. Yet no writer has said more exactly what he
meant to say. For magnificence, for pathos, for vehement
exhortation, for subtle disquisition, for every purpose of the poet,
the orator, and the divine, this homely dialect, the dialect of
plain working-men, was sufficient. There is no book in our
literature on which we could so readily stake the fame of the old
unpolluted English language--no book which shows so well how rich
that language is in its own proper wealth, and how little it has
been improved by all that it has borrowed. T. B. Macaulay--Essays.
To the names of Baxter and Howe must be added the name of a man far
below them in station and in acquired knowledge, but in virtue their
equal, and in genius their superior, John Bunyan. Bunyan had been
bred a tinker, and had served as a private soldier in the
parliamentary army. Early in his life he had been fearfully tortured
by remorse for his youthful sins, the worst of which seem, however,
to have been such as the world thinks venial. His keen sensibility
and his powerful imagination made his internal conflicts singularly
terrible. He fancied that he was under sentence of reprobation, that
he had committed blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, that he had sold
Christ, that he was actually possessed by a demon.
Pages:
619
620
621
622
623
624
625
626
627
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643