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Whyte, Alexander, 1836-1921

"Bunyan Characters (1st Series)"

' Open Bunyan now, with Butler's
keywords in your mind, and see the various tempers, tastes, dispositions,
frames of mind from which his various characters act, and which, at
bottom, really make them the characters, good or bad, which they are. See
the principles which Bunyan has with such inimitable felicity embodied
and exhibited in their names, the principles within them from which they
have acted till they have become a habit and then a character, that
character which they themselves are and will remain. See the variety of
John Bunyan's characters, a richer and a more endless variety than are
the features of their faces. Christian and Christiana, Obstinate and
Pliable, Mr. Fearing and Mr. Feeblemind, Temporary and Talkative, Mr. By-
ends and Mr. Facing-both-ways, Simple, Sloth, Presumption, that brisk lad
Ignorance, and the genuine Mr. Brisk himself. And then Captain Boasting,
Mr. High-mind, Mr. Wet-Eyes, and so on, through a less known (but equally
well worth knowing) company of municipal and military characters in the
_Holy War_.
We shall see, as we proceed, how this and that character in Bunyan was
formed and deformed.


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