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The Pilgrim's Progress: Christiana

As I was in my dream, I saw that Christiana, she that was wife to Christian, was much broken by her ungodly carriages to the good man who had now come to the Celestial City. Calling to remembrance his restless groans and brinish tears, she resolved to go after him. With that her four boys fell to weeping and cried that they would go with her. On this one came to her house and said, "Christiana, here is a letter for thee which I have brought from thy husband's King." She found that it smelled after the manner of the best perfume and was written in letters of gold. Henceforth she carried it in her bosom, reading to herself and her children till they had got most of it by rote of heart. So she likewise went out on her journey to the Celestial City, passing through trials similar to those of her good man, and guided by one Mr. Greatheart. Though many dissuaded her, such as Mrs. Timorous, Mrs. Lightmind, Mrs. Love-the-flesh, Mrs. Know-nothing, and Madame Bubble, yet pressed she on, arriving like good Christian himself at the River of Death. Here, when she was come, the road was thronged with people to see her cross. All the banks, too, beyond the river were full of horses and chariots which were come down from above to accompany her to the City gate. So, with a beckon of farewell to those that followed, she entered the river. The last words she was heard to utter were, "Lord, I come to be with thee."

Then her children and friends returned to their place, for that those who waited for Christiana had carried her out of their sight. But she went in and entered at the gate with all the ceremonies of joy that had welcomed good Christian before her.

BULWER-LYTTON EDWARD GEORGE EARLE LYTTON BULWER, more familiarly known to novel readers as Bulwer-Lytton, was born in London, May 25, 1803. He was more of a prodigy in his youth and had a much more public career than most men who have achieved fame as novelists. At the age of fifteen he distinguished himself by publishing a volume of poems and by falling so violently in love that he became highly morbid when his proposal of marriage was not taken seriously by the father of the girl he loved. She died a few years later and Bulwer said that the disappointment embittered his whole life. At Cambridge, he won a medal for the excellence of a poem and published another book of verse. In 1827 he had sufficiently recovered from his premature love-affair to marry, against his mother's wishes, a brilliant beauty of society. The marriage was doomed from the outset to be unhappy, for both Bulwer and his wife were too unrestrained to live together. They quarreled, were legally separated, and continued to quarrel in print for years.

Bulwer was rapidly winning renown. His first novels were successes, but it was not until "The Last Days of Pompeii" (1834) that his fame was assured. Nine years later appeared "The Last of the Barons," which many good judges have considered his best work. He wrote numerous other stories, novels of society, of crime, of mysteries, of family life. He was the most successful dramatist of his time. He dabbled in journalism. For ten years he was a member of Parliament, was later secretary for the colonies, and in 1866 was raised to the peerage as Baron Lytton. He died on January 18, 1873.