THE AUTHOR'S APOLOGY FOR HIS BOOK
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 was : I writing of the Way And Race of Saints, in this our Gospel-day, Fell suddenly into an Allegory About their Journey, and the way to Glory, In more than twenty things which I set down ; This done, I twenty more had in my Crown, And they again began to multiply, Like sparks that from the coals of fire do fly. Nay then, thought I, if that you breed so fast, I '11 put you by yourselves, lest you at last Should prove ad infinitum, and eat out The Book that I already am about. Well, so I did ; but yet I did not think To shew to all the World my Pen and Ink In such a mode ; I only thought to make }} 1. Bunyan naively puts forward the spontaneous origin of his work as a kiud of excuse for its figurative and picturesque character, which might well savor of worlclliness to the Puritan conscience. In the whole of the apology which follows he seems to be trying to persuade himself, quite as much as his readers, of the spiritual profit of the " similitudes " which he has used with so much delight.
2. Thus for to write. Not a vulgarism in Bunyan's day. The sign of the infinitive was regarded as an inseparable prefix, the for being added to express purpose. Compare Chaucer's " Wente for to don his pilgrimage."
