cup of intoxication
wreathed round with flowers, yet there was always poison at the
bottom. But what most surprised me was that though no day passed
over their heads in which some of the most merry-makers did not drop
through, yet their loss made little impression on those who were
left. Nay, instead of being awakened to more circumspection and
self-denial by the continual dropping off of those about them,
several of them seemed to borrow from thence an argument of a direct
contrary tendency, and the very shortness of time was only urged as
a reason to use it more sedulously for the indulgence in sensual
delights. "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." "Let us
crown ourselves with rose-buds before they are withered." With these
and a thousand other such like inscriptions, the gay garlands of the
wilderness were decorated. Some admired poets were set to work to
set the most corrupt sentiments to the most harmonious tunes; these
were sung without scruple, chiefly indeed by the looser sons of
riot, but not seldom also by the more orderly daughters of sobriety,
who were not ashamed to sing to the sound of instruments, sentiments
so corrupt and immoral, that they would have blushed to speak or
read them; but the music seemed to sanctify the corruption,
especially such as was connected with love or drinking.

Now I observed that all the travelers who had so much as a spark of
life left, seemed every now and then, as they moved onward, to cast
an eye, though with very different degrees of attention, toward the
_Happy Land_, which they were told lay at the end of their journey:
but as they could not see very far forward, and as they knew there
was a _dark and shadowy valley_ which must needs be crossed before
they could attain to the _Happy Land_, they tried to turn their
attention from it as much as they could. The truth is, they were not
sufficiently apt to consult a map and a road-book which the King had
given them, and which pointed out the path to the _Happy Land_ so
clearly that the "wayfaring men, though simple, could not err." This
map also defined very correctly the boundaries of the _Happy Land_
from the _Land of Misery_, both of which lay on the other side of
the dark and shadowy valley; but so many beacons and lighthouses
were erected, so many clear and explicit directions furnished for
avoiding the one country and attaining the other, that it was not
the King's fault, if even one single traveler got wrong.