"This book is writ in such a dialect
As may the minds of listless men affect."
The idiom of the book is purely English, acquired by a diligent study of
the English Bible. It is the simplest, raciest, and most sinewy English
to be found in any writer of our language; and Bunyan's amazing use of
this Saxon idiom for all the purposes of his story, and the range and
freedom of his imaginative genius therein, like certain of Tennyson's
'Idylls,' show it to be an instrument of symphonic capacity and variety.
Bunyan's own maxim is a good one:--"Words easy to be understood do often
hit the mark, when high and learned ones do only pierce the air."
Of the 'Pilgrim's Progress,' in both its parts, we may say in the words
of Milton:--
"These are works that could not be composed by the invocation of
Dame Memory and her siren daughters, but by devout prayer to
that eternal Spirit who can enrich with all utterance and
knowledge, and send out his Seraphim, with the hallowed fire of
his altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases,
without reference to station, birth, or education."