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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=419110" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Author's Apology For His Book</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">WHEN at the first I took my pen in hand<br>Thus for to write, I did not understand</div><div style="margin:10px 0">That I at all should make a little book<br>In such a mode: nay, I had undertook</div><div style="margin:10px 0">To make another; which, when almost done,<br>Before I was aware I this begun.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And thus it was: I, writing of the way<br>And race of saints in this our gospel-day,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Fell suddenly into an allegory<br>About their journey, and the way to glory,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">In more than twenty things which I set down<br>This done, I twenty more had in my crown,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And they again began to multiply,<br>Like sparks that from the coals of fire do fly.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Nay, then, thought I, if that you breed so fast,<br>I'll put you by yourselves, lest you at last</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Should prove ad infinitum, I and eat out<br>The book that I already am about.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Well, so I did; but yet I did not think<br>To show to all the world my pen and ink</div><div style="margin:10px 0">In such a mode; I only thought to make<br>I knew not what: nor did I undertake</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thereby to please my neighbor; no, not I;<br>I did it my own self to gratify.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Neither did I but vacant seasons spend<br>In this my scribble; nor did I intend</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But to divert myself, in doing this,<br>From worser thoughts, which make me do amiss.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thus I set pen to paper with delight,<br>And quickly had my thoughts in black and white;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">For having now my method by the end,<br>Still as I pull'd, it came; and so I penned</div><div style="margin:10px 0">It down; until it came at last to be,<br>For length and breadth, the bigness which you see.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Well, when I had thus put mine ends together<br>I show'd them others, that I might see whether</div><div style="margin:10px 0">They would condemn them, or them justify:<br>And some said, let them live; some, let them die:</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Some said, John, print it; others said, Not so:<br>Some said, It might do good; others said, No.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Now was I in a strait, and did not see<br>Which was the best thing to be done by me:</div><div style="margin:10px 0">At last I thought, Since ye are thus divided,<br>I print it will; and so the case decided.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">For, thought I, some I see would have it done,<br>Though others in that channel do not run:</div><div style="margin:10px 0">To prove, then, who advised for the best,<br>Thus I thought fit to put it to the test.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I further thought, if now I did deny<br>Those that would have it, thus to gratify;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I did not know, but hinder them I might<br>Of that which would to them be great delight.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">For those which were not for its coming forth,<br>I said to them, Offend you, I am loath;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet since your brethren pleased with it be,<br>Forbear to judge, till you do further see.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">If that thou wilt not read, let it alone;<br>Some love the meat, some love to pick the bone.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yea, that I might them better palliate,<br>I did too with them thus expostulate:</div><div style="margin:10px 0">May I not write in such a style as this?<br>In such a method too, and yet not miss</div><div style="margin:10px 0">My end-thy good? Why may it not be done?<br>Dark clouds bring waters, when the bright bring none.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yea, dark or bright, if they their silver drops<br>Cause to descend, the earth, by yielding crops,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Gives praise to both, and carpeth not at either,<br>But treasures up the fruit they yield together;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yea, so commixes both, that in their fruit<br>None can distinguish this from that; they suit</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Her well when hungry; but if she be full,<br>She spews out both, and makes their blessing null.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">You see the ways the fisherman doth take<br>To catch the fish; what engines doth he make!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Behold how he engageth all his wits;<br>Also his snares, lines, angles, hooks, and nets:</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet fish there be, that neither hook nor line,<br>Nor snare, nor net, nor engine can make thine:</div><div style="margin:10px 0">They must be groped for, and be tickled too,<br>Or they will not be catch'd, whate'er you do.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">How does the fowler seek to catch his game<br>By divers means! all which one cannot name.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">His guns, his nets, his lime-twigs, light and bell:<br>He creeps, he goes, he stands; yea, who can tell</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Of all his postures? yet there's none of these<br>Will make him master of what fowls he please.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yea, he must pipe and whistle, to catch this;<br>Yet if he does so, that bird he will miss.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">If that a pearl may in toad's head dwell,<br>And may be found too in an oyster-shell;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">If things that promise nothing, do contain<br>What better is than gold; who will disdain,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">That have an inkling to of it, there to look,<br>That they may find it. Now my little book,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">(Though void of all these paintings that may make<br>It with this or the other man to take,)</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Is not without those things that do excel<br>What do in brave but empty notions dwell.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">&quot;Well, yet I am not fully satisfied<br>That this your book will stand, when soundly tried.&quot;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Why, what's the matter? &quot;It is dark.&quot; What though?<br>&quot;But it is feigned.&quot; What of that? I trow</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Some men by feigned words, as dark as mine,<br>Make truth to spangle, and its rays to shine.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">&quot;But they want solidness.&quot; Speak, man, thy mind.<br>&quot;They drown the weak; metaphors make us blind.&quot;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Solidity, indeed, becomes the pen<br>Of him that writeth things divine to men:</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But must I needs want solidness, because<br>By metaphors I speak? Were not God's laws,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">His gospel laws, in olden time held forth<br>By types, shadows, and metaphors? Yet loth</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Will any sober man be to find fault<br>With them, lest he be found for to assault</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The highest wisdom! No, he rather stoops,<br>And seeks to find out what, by pins and loops,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">By calves and sheep, by heifers, and by rams,<br>By birds and herbs, and by the blood of lambs,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">God speaketh to him; and happy is he<br>That finds the light and grace that in them be.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But not too forward, therefore, to conclude<br>That I want solidness-that I am rude;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">All things solid in show, not solid be;<br>All things in parable despise not we,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Lest things most hurtful lightly we receive,<br>And things that good are, of our souls bereave.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">My dark and cloudy words they do but hold<br>The truth, as cabinets inclose the gold.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The prophets used much by metaphors<br>To set forth truth: yea, who so considers</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Christ, his apostles too, shall plainly see,<br>That truths to this day in such mantles be.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Am I afraid to say, that holy writ,<br>Which for its style and phrase puts down all wit,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Is everywhere so full of all these things,<br>Dark figures, allegories? Yet there springs</div><div style="margin:10px 0">From that same book, that lustre, and those rays<br>Of light, that turn our darkest nights to days.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Come, let my carper to his life now look,<br>And find there darker lines than in my book</div><div style="margin:10px 0">He findeth any; yea, and let him know,<br>That in his best things there are worse lines too.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">May we but stand before impartial men,<br>To his poor one I durst adventure ten,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">That they will take my meaning in these lines<br>Far better than his lies in silver shrines.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Come, truth, although in swaddling-clothes, I find<br>Informs the judgment, rectifies the mind;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Pleases the understanding, makes the will<br>Submit, the memory too it doth fill</div><div style="margin:10px 0">With what doth our imagination please;<br>Likewise it tends our troubles to appease.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Sound words, I know, Timothy is to use,<br>And old wives' fables he is to refuse;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But yet grave Paul him nowhere doth forbid<br>The use of parables, in which lay hid</div><div style="margin:10px 0">That gold, those pearls, and precious stones that were<br>Worth digging for, and that with greatest care.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Let me add one word more. O man of God,<br>Art thou offended? Dost thou wish I had</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Put forth my matter in another dress?<br>Or that I had in things been more express?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Three things let me propound; then I submit<br>To those that are my betters, as is fit.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">1. I find not that I am denied the use<br>Of this my method, so I no abuse</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Put on the words, things, readers, or be rude<br>In handling figure or similitude,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">In application; but all that I may<br>Seek the advance of truth this or that way.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Denied, did I say? Nay, I have leave,<br>(Example too, and that from them that have</div><div style="margin:10px 0">God better pleased, by their words or ways,<br>Than any man that breatheth now-a-days,)</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thus to express my mind, thus to declare<br>Things unto thee that excellentest are.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">2. I find that men as high as trees will write<br>Dialogue-wise; yet no man doth them slight</div><div style="margin:10px 0">For writing so. Indeed, if they abuse<br>Truth, cursed be they, and the craft they use</div><div style="margin:10px 0">To that intent; but yet let truth be free<br>To make her sallies upon thee and me,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Which way it pleases God: for who knows how,<br>Better than he that taught us first to plough,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">To guide our minds and pens for his designs?<br>And he makes base things usher in divine.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">3. I find that holy writ, in many places,<br>Hath semblance with this method, where the cases</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Do call for one thing to set forth another:<br>Use it I may then, and yet nothing smother</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Truth's golden beams: nay, by this method may<br>Make it cast forth its rays as light as day.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And now, before I do put up my pen,<br>I'll show the profit of my book; and then</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Commit both thee and it unto that hand<br>That pulls the strong down, and makes weak ones stand.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">This book it chalketh out before thine eyes<br>The man that seeks the everlasting prize:</div><div style="margin:10px 0">It shows you whence he comes, whither he goes,<br>What he leaves undone; also what he does:</div><div style="margin:10px 0">It also shows you how he runs, and runs,<br>Till he unto the gate of glory comes.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">It shows, too, who set out for life amain,<br>As if the lasting crown they would obtain;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Here also you may see the reason why<br>They lose their labor, and like fools do die.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">This book will make a traveler of thee,<br>If by its counsel thou wilt ruled be;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">It will direct thee to the Holy Land,<br>If thou wilt its directions understand</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yea, it will make the slothful active be;<br>The blind also delightful things to see.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Art thou for something rare and profitable?<br>Or would'st thou see a truth within a fable?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Art thou forgetful? Wouldest thou remember<br>From New-Year's day to the last of December?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then read my fancies; they will stick like burs,<br>And may be, to the helpless, comforters.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">This book is writ in such a dialect<br>As may the minds of listless men affect:</div><div style="margin:10px 0">It seems a novelty, and yet contains<br>Nothing but sound and honest gospel strains.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Would'st thou divert thyself from melancholy?<br>Would'st thou be pleasant, yet be far from folly?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Would'st thou read riddles, and their explanation?<br>Or else be drowned in thy contemplation?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Dost thou love picking meat? Or would'st thou see<br>A man i' the clouds, and hear him speak to thee?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Would'st thou be in a dream, and yet not sleep?<br>Or would'st thou in a moment laugh and weep?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Would'st thou lose thyself and catch no harm,<br>And find thyself again without a charm?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Would'st read thyself, and read thou know'st not what,<br>And yet know whether thou art blest or not,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">By reading the same lines? O then come hither,<br>And lay my book, thy head, and heart together.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=John+Bunyan">John Bunyan</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=419110" data-title="Author's Apology For His Book de John Bunyan" data-description="WHEN at the first I took my pen in hand
Thus for to write, I did not understand

That I at all should make a little book
In such a mode: nay, I had undertook

To make another; which, when almost done,
Before I was aware I this begun.

And thus it ..."></div>
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