begun--had he held on in the face of all
fear and all danger as Christiana's noble husband had done--to a
certainty his daughter would have started that morning with Christiana
and her company, and would have been, if a timid, easily scared, and
troublesome pilgrim, yet as true a pilgrim, and made as welcome at last,
as, say, Miss Much-afraid, Mr. Fearing, and Mr. Ready-to-halt were made.
But her father's superficiality and shakiness, and at bottom his warm
love of this world and his lukewarm love of the world to come, had
unfortunately all descended to his daughter, till we find her actually
reviling Christiana on that decisive morning, and returning to her dish
of tea and tittle-tattle with Mrs. Bats-eyes, Mrs. Inconsiderate, Mrs.
Light-mind, and Mrs. Know-nothing.

2. The thing that positively terrified Mrs. Timorous at the very thought
of setting out with Christiana that morning was that intolerable way in
which Christiana had begun to go back upon her past life as a wife and a
mother. Christiana could not hide her deep distress, and, indeed, she
did not much try. Such were the swarms of painful memories that her
husband's late death, the visit of Secret, and one thing and another had
let loose upon Christiana's mind, that she could take pleasure in nothing
but in how she was to escape away from her past life, and how she could
in any way mend it and make up for it where she could not escape from it.
"You may judge yourself," said Mrs. Timorous to Mrs. Light-mind, "whether
I was likely to find much entertainment with a woman like that!" For,
Mrs. Timorous too, you must know, had a past life of her own; and it was
that past life of hers all brought back by Christiana's words that
morning that made Mrs. Timorous so revile her old friend and return to
the society we so soon see her with. Now, is not this the case, that we
all have swarms of evil memories that we dare not face? There is no
single relationship in life that we can boldly look back upon and fully
face. As son or as daughter, as brother or as sister, as friend or as
lover, as husband or as wife, as minister or as member, as master or as
servant--what swarms of hornet-memories darken our hearts as we so look
back! Let any grown-up man, with some imagination, tenderness of heart,
and integrity of conscience, go back step by step, taking some time to
it,--at a new year, say, or a birthday, or on some such suitable
occasion: let him go over his past life