Mosses from an old manse
chance to crumble down, it will remain an eternal monument of the
builder’s skill and enterprise. It is a great though incidental
advantage that the materials from the heart of the Hill Difficulty have
been employed in filling up the Valley of Humiliation, thus obviating
the necessity of descending into that disagreeable and unwholesome
hollow.
“This is a wonderful improvement, indeed,” said I. “Yet I should have
been glad of an opportunity to visit the Palace Beautiful and be
introduced to the charming young ladies—Miss Prudence, Miss Piety, Miss
Charity, and the rest—who have the kindness to entertain pilgrims
there.”
“Young ladies!” cried Mr. Smooth-it-away, as soon as he could speak for
laughing. “And charming young ladies! Why, my dear fellow, they are old
maids, every soul of them—prim, starched, dry, and angular; and not one
of them, I will venture to say, has altered so much as the fashion of
her gown since the days of Christian’s pilgrimage.”
“Ah, well,” said I, much comforted, “then I can very readily dispense
with their acquaintance.”
The respectable Apollyon was now putting on the steam at a prodigious
rate, anxious, perhaps, to get rid of the unpleasant reminiscences
connected with the spot where he had so disastrously encountered
Christian. Consulting Mr. Bunyan’s road-book, I perceived that we must
now be within a few miles of the Valley of the Shadow of Death, into
which doleful region, at our present speed, we should plunge much
sooner than seemed at all desirable. In truth, I expected nothing
better than to find myself in the ditch on one side or the Quag on the
other; but on communicating my apprehensions to Mr. Smooth-it-away, he
assured me that the difficulties of this passage, even in its worst
condition, had been vastly exaggerated, and that, in its present state
of improvement, I might consider myself as safe as on any railroad in
Christendom.
Even while we were speaking the train shot into the entrance of this
dreaded Valley. Though I plead guilty to some foolish palpitations of
the heart during our headlong rush over the causeway here constructed,
yet it were unjust to withhold the highest encomiums on the boldness of
its original conception and the ingenuity of those who executed it. It
was gratifying, likewise, to observe how much care had been taken to
dispel the everlasting gloom and supply the defect of cheerful
sunshine, not a ray of which has ever penetrated among these awful
shadows. For this purpose, the inflammable gas which exudes plentifully
from the soil is collected by means of pipes, and thence communicated
to a quadruple row of lamps along the whole extent of the passage. Thus
a radiance has been created even out of the fiery and sulphurous curse
that rests forever upon the valley—a radiance hurtful, however, to the
eyes, and somewhat bewildering, as I discovered by the changes which it
wrought in the visages of my companions. In this respect, as compared
with natural daylight, there is the same difference as between truth
and falsehood, but if the reader have ever travelled through the dark
Valley, he will have learned to be thankful for any light that he could
get—if not from the sky above, then from the blasted soil beneath. Such
was the red brilliancy of these lamps that they appeared to build walls
of fire on both sides of the track, between which we held our course at
lightning speed, while a reverberating thunder filled the Valley with
its echoes. Had the engine run off the track,—a catastrophe, it is
whispered, by no means unprecedented,—the bottomless pit, if there be
any such place, would undoubtedly have received us. Just as some dismal
fooleries of this nature had made my heart quake there came a
tremendous shriek, careering along the valley as if a thousand devils
had burst their lungs to utter it, but which proved to be merely the
whistle of the engine on arriving at a stopping-place.
The spot where we had now paused is the same that our friend Bunyan—a
truthful man, but infected with many fantastic notions—has designated,
in terms plainer than I like to repeat, as the mouth of the infernal
region. This, however, must be a mistake, inasmuch as Mr.
Smooth-it-away, while we remained in the smoky and lurid cavern, took
occasion to prove that Tophet has not even a metaphorical existence.
The place, he assured us, is no other than the crater of a half-extinct
volcano, in which the directors had caused forges to be set up for the
manufacture of railroad iron. Hence, also, is obtained a plentiful
supply of fuel for the use of the engines. Whoever had gazed into the
dismal obscurity of the broad cavern mouth, whence ever and anon darted
huge tongues of dusky flame, and had seen the strange, half-shaped
monsters, and visions of faces horribly grotesque, into which the smoke
seemed to wreathe itself, and had heard the awful murmurs, and shrieks,
and deep, shuddering whispers of the blast, sometimes forming
themselves into words almost articulate, would have seized upon Mr.
Smooth-it-away’s comfortable explanation as greedily as we did. The
inhabitants of the cavern, moreover, were unlovely personages, dark,
smoke-begrimed, generally deformed, with misshapen feet, and a glow of
dusky redness in their eyes as if their hearts had caught fire and were
blazing out of the upper windows. It struck me as a peculiarity that
the laborers at the forge and those who brought fuel to the engine,
when they began to draw short breath, positively emitted smoke from
their mouth and nostrils.
Among the idlers about the train, most of whom were puffing cigars
which they had lighted at the flame of the crater, I was perplexed to
notice several who, to my certain knowledge, had heretofore set forth
by railroad for the Celestial City. They looked dark, wild, and smoky,
with a singular resemblance, indeed, to the native inhabitants, like
whom, also, they had a disagreeable propensity to ill-natured gibes and
sneers, the habit of which had wrought a settled contortion of their
visages. Having been on speaking terms with one of these persons,—an
indolent, good-for-nothing fellow, who went by the name of
Take-it-easy,—I called him, and inquired what was his business there.
“Did you not start,” said I, “for the Celestial City?”
“That’s a fact,” said Mr. Take-it-easy, carelessly puffing some smoke
into my eyes. “But I heard such bad accounts that I never took pains to
climb the hill on which the city stands. No business doing, no fun
going on, nothing to drink, and no smoking allowed, and a thrumming of
church music from morning till night. I would not stay in such a place
if they offered me house room and living free.”
“But, my good Mr. Take-it-easy,” cried I, “why take up your residence
here, of all places in the world?”
“Oh,” said the loafer, with a grin, “it is very warm hereabouts, and I
meet with plenty of old acquaintances, and altogether the place suits
me. I hope to see you back again some day soon. A pleasant journey to
you.”
While he was speaking the bell of the engine rang, and we dashed away
after dropping a few passengers, but receiving no new ones. Rattling
onward through the Valley, we were dazzled with the fiercely gleaming
gas lamps, as before. But sometimes, in the dark of intense brightness,
grim faces, that bore the aspect and expression of individual sins, or
evil passions, seemed to thrust themselves through the veil of light,
glaring upon us, and stretching forth a great, dusky hand, as if to
impede our progress. I almost thought that they were my own sins that
appalled me there. These were freaks of imagination—nothing more,
certainly-mere delusions, which I ought to be heartily ashamed of; but
all through the Dark Valley I was tormented, and pestered, and
dolefully bewildered with the same kind of waking dreams. The mephitic
gases of that region intoxicate the brain. As the light of natural day,
however, began to struggle with the glow of the lanterns, these vain
imaginations lost their vividness, and finally vanished from the first
ray of sunshine that greeted our escape from the Valley of the Shadow
of Death. Ere we had gone a mile beyond it I could well-nigh have taken
my oath that this whole gloomy passage was a dream.
At the end of the valley, as John Bunyan mentions, is a cavern, where,
in his days, dwelt two cruel giants, Pope and Pagan, who had strown the
ground about their residence with the bones of slaughtered pilgrims.
These vile old troglodytes are no longer there; but into their deserted
cave another terrible giant has thrust himself, and makes it his
business to seize upon honest travellers and fatten them for his table
with plentiful meals of smoke, mist, moonshine, raw potatoes, and
sawdust. He is a German by birth, and is called Giant
Transcendentalist; but as to his form, his features, his substance, and
his nature generally, it is the chief peculiarity of this huge
miscreant that neither he for himself, nor anybody for him, has ever
been able to describe them. As we rushed by the cavern’s mouth we
caught a hasty glimpse of him, looking somewhat like an
ill-proportioned figure, but considerably more like a heap of fog and
duskiness. He shouted after us, but in so strange a phraseology that we
knew not what he meant, nor whether to be encouraged or affrighted.
It was late in the day when the train thundered into the ancient city
of Vanity, where Vanity Fair is still at the height of prosperity, and
exhibits an epitome of whatever is brilliant, gay, and fascinating
beneath the sun. As I purposed to make a considerable stay here, it
gratified me to learn that there is no longer the want of harmony
between the town’s-people and pilgrims, which impelled the former to
such lamentably mistaken measures as the persecution of Christian and
the fiery martyrdom of Faithful. On the contrary, as the new railroad
brings with it great trade and a constant influx of strangers, the lord
of Vanity Fair is its chief patron, and the capitalists of the city are
among the largest stockholders. Many passengers stop to take their
pleasure or make their profit in the Fair, instead of going onward to
the Celestial City. Indeed, such are the charms of the place that
people often affirm it to be the true and only heaven; stoutly
contending that there is no other, that those who seek further are mere
dreamers, and that, if the fabled brightness of the Celestial City lay
but a bare mile beyond the gates of Vanity, they would not be fools
enough to go thither. Without subscribing to these perhaps exaggerated
encomiums, I can truly say that my abode in the city was mainly
agreeable, and my intercourse with the inhabitants productive of much
amusement and instruction.
Being naturally of a serious turn, my attention was directed to the
solid advantages derivable from a residence here, rather than to the
effervescent pleasures which are the grand object with too many
visitants. The Christian reader, if he have had no accounts of the city
later than Bunyan’s time, will be surprised to hear that almost every
street has its church, and that the reverend clergy are nowhere held in
higher respect than at Vanity Fair. And well do they deserve such
honorable estimation; for the maxims of wisdom and virtue which fall
from their lips come from as deep a spiritual source, and tend to as
lofty a religious aim, as those of the sagest philosophers of old. In
justification of this high praise I need only mention the names of the
Rev. Mr. Shallow-deep, the Rev. Mr. Stumble-at-truth, that fine old
clerical character the Rev. Mr. This-today, who expects shortly to
resign his pulpit to the Rev. Mr. That-tomorrow; together with the Rev.
Mr. Bewilderment, the Rev. Mr. Clog-the-spirit, and, last and greatest,