Bunyan Characters-2 [61]
judged too hard for me, I was carried up that hill by one of his servants. Indeed I have found much relief from pilgrims, though none were willing to go so softly as I am forced to do. Yet, still, as they came on, they bid me be of good cheer, and said that it was the will of their Lord that comfort should be given to the feeble- minded, and so went on their own pace. I look for brunts by the way; but this I have resolved on, to wit, to run when I can, to go when I cannot run, and to creep when I cannot go. As to the main, I thank Him that loves me, I am fixed. My way is before me, my mind is beyond the river that has no bridge, though I am, as you see, but of a feeble mind."
Then said old Mr. Honest, "Have you not some time ago been acquainted with one Mr. Fearing, a pilgrim?" "Acquainted with him! yes. He came from the town of Stupidity, which lies four degrees to the northward of the City of Destruction, and as many off where I was born. Yet we were well acquainted; for, indeed, he was mine uncle, my father's brother. He and I have been much of a temper; he was a little shorter than I, but yet we were much of a complexion." "I perceive that you know him," said Mr. Honest, "and I am apt to believe also that you were related one to another; for you have his whitely look, a cast like his with your eye, and your speech is much alike."
"Alas!" Feeble-mind went on, "I want a suitable companion. You are all lusty and strong, but I, as you see, am weak. I choose therefore rather to come behind, lest, by reason of my many infirmities, I should be both a burden to myself and to you. I am, as I said, a man of a weak and feeble mind, and shall be offended and made weak at that which others can bear. I shall like no laughing; I shall like no gay attire; I shall like no unprofitable questions. Nay, I am so weak a man as to be offended with what others have a liberty to do. I do not yet know all the truth. I am a very ignorant Christian man. Sometimes, if I hear some rejoice in the Lord, it troubles me because I cannot do so too. It is with me as with a weak man among the strong, or as with a sickly man among the healthy, or as a lamp despised." "But, brother," said Greatheart, "I have it in commission to comfort the feeble- minded and to support the weak." Thus therefore, they went on--Mr. Greatheart and Mr. Honest went before; Christiana and her children went next; and Mr. Feeble-mind and Mr. Ready-to-halt came behind with his crutches.
1. In the first place, a single word as to Feeble-mind's family tree.
Thackeray says that The Peerage is the Family Bible of every true- born Englishman. Every genuine Englishman, he tells us, teaches that sacred book diligently to his children. He talks out of it to them when he sits in the house and when he walks by the way. He binds it upon his children's hands, and it is as a frontlet between their eyes. He writes its names upon the door-posts of his house, and makes pictures out of it upon his gates. Now, John Bunyan was a born Englishman in his liking for a family tree. He had no such tree himself--scarcely so much as a bramble bush; but, all the same, let the tinker take his pen in hand, and the pedigrees and genealogies of all his pilgrims are sure to be set forth as much as if they were to form the certificates that those pilgrims were to hand in at the gate.
Feeble-mind, then, was of an old, a well-rooted and a wide-spread race. The county of Indecision was full of that ancient stock. They had intermarried in-and-in also till their small stature, their whitely look, the droop of their eye, and their weak leaky speech all made them to be easily recognised wherever they went. It was Feeble-mind's salvation that Death had knocked at his door every day from his youth up. He was feeble in body as well as in mind; only the feebleness of his body had put a certain strength into his mind; the only strength he ever showed, indeed, was the strength that had its roots in a weak constitution at which sickness and death struck their dissolving blows every day.
Then said old Mr. Honest, "Have you not some time ago been acquainted with one Mr. Fearing, a pilgrim?" "Acquainted with him! yes. He came from the town of Stupidity, which lies four degrees to the northward of the City of Destruction, and as many off where I was born. Yet we were well acquainted; for, indeed, he was mine uncle, my father's brother. He and I have been much of a temper; he was a little shorter than I, but yet we were much of a complexion." "I perceive that you know him," said Mr. Honest, "and I am apt to believe also that you were related one to another; for you have his whitely look, a cast like his with your eye, and your speech is much alike."
"Alas!" Feeble-mind went on, "I want a suitable companion. You are all lusty and strong, but I, as you see, am weak. I choose therefore rather to come behind, lest, by reason of my many infirmities, I should be both a burden to myself and to you. I am, as I said, a man of a weak and feeble mind, and shall be offended and made weak at that which others can bear. I shall like no laughing; I shall like no gay attire; I shall like no unprofitable questions. Nay, I am so weak a man as to be offended with what others have a liberty to do. I do not yet know all the truth. I am a very ignorant Christian man. Sometimes, if I hear some rejoice in the Lord, it troubles me because I cannot do so too. It is with me as with a weak man among the strong, or as with a sickly man among the healthy, or as a lamp despised." "But, brother," said Greatheart, "I have it in commission to comfort the feeble- minded and to support the weak." Thus therefore, they went on--Mr. Greatheart and Mr. Honest went before; Christiana and her children went next; and Mr. Feeble-mind and Mr. Ready-to-halt came behind with his crutches.
1. In the first place, a single word as to Feeble-mind's family tree.
Thackeray says that The Peerage is the Family Bible of every true- born Englishman. Every genuine Englishman, he tells us, teaches that sacred book diligently to his children. He talks out of it to them when he sits in the house and when he walks by the way. He binds it upon his children's hands, and it is as a frontlet between their eyes. He writes its names upon the door-posts of his house, and makes pictures out of it upon his gates. Now, John Bunyan was a born Englishman in his liking for a family tree. He had no such tree himself--scarcely so much as a bramble bush; but, all the same, let the tinker take his pen in hand, and the pedigrees and genealogies of all his pilgrims are sure to be set forth as much as if they were to form the certificates that those pilgrims were to hand in at the gate.
Feeble-mind, then, was of an old, a well-rooted and a wide-spread race. The county of Indecision was full of that ancient stock. They had intermarried in-and-in also till their small stature, their whitely look, the droop of their eye, and their weak leaky speech all made them to be easily recognised wherever they went. It was Feeble-mind's salvation that Death had knocked at his door every day from his youth up. He was feeble in body as well as in mind; only the feebleness of his body had put a certain strength into his mind; the only strength he ever showed, indeed, was the strength that had its roots in a weak constitution at which sickness and death struck their dissolving blows every day.