still obscure in form, but already formidable in suggestion.
Cut the second, "The Fiend in Discourse," represents him, not reasoning,
railing rather, shaking his spear at the pilgrim, his shoulder advanced,
his tail writhing in the air, his foot ready for a spring, while
Christian stands back a little, timidly defensive. The third illustrates
these magnificent words: "Then Apollyon straddled quite over the whole
breadth of the way, and said, I am void of fear in this matter: prepare
thyself to die; for I swear by my infernal den that thou shalt go no
farther: here will I spill thy soul! And with that he threw a flaming
dart at his breast." In the cut he throws a dart with either hand,
belching pointed flames out of his mouth, spreading his broad vans, and
straddling the while across the path, as only a fiend can straddle who
has just sworn by his infernal den. The defence will not be long against
such vice, such flames, such red-hot nether energy. And in the fourth
cut, to be sure, he has leaped bodily upon his victim, sped by foot and
pinion, and roaring as he leaps. The fifth shows the climacteric of the
battle; Christian has reached nimbly out and got his sword, and dealt
that deadly home-thrust, the fiend still stretched upon him, but "giving
back, as one that had received his mortal wound." The raised head, the
bellowing mouth, the paw clapped upon the sword, the one wing relaxed in
agony, all realise vividly these words of the text. In the sixth and
last, the trivial armed figure of the pilgrim is seen kneeling with
clasped hands on the betrodden scene of contest and among the shivers of
the darts; while just at the margin the hinder quarters and the tail of
Apollyon are whisking off, indignant and discomfited.

In one point only do these pictures seem to be unworthy of the text, and
that point is one rather of the difference of arts than the difference
of artists. Throughout his best and worst, in his highest and most
divine imaginations as in the narrowest sallies of his sectarianism, the
human-hearted piety of Bunyan touches and ennobles, convinces, accuses
the reader. Through no art beside the art of words can the kindness of a
man's affections be expressed. In the cuts you shall find faithfully
parodied the quaintness and the power, the triviality and the surprising
freshness of the author's fancy; there you shall find him outstripped in
ready symbolism and the art of bringing things essentially invisible
bef