With Bunyan that was not the case. He desired to inculcate certain moral teachings and he had the sense to see that the best way to inculcate a doctrine and to get it deep into the brain and marrow of the reader was to make him be vicariously present at scenes the contemplation of which would cause certain moral or practical ideas to arise in the mind. And the deservedly prodigious--the deservedly unrivalled popular appeal of the _Pilgrim’s Progress_ is sufficient testimony at once to the immense skill and the unparalleledly simple moral fervour of its author. For the reader attending on the episode of the Slough of Despond is actually in a bog a little way away from his native town and the man who reads of Giant Despair is in all truth confronted with either Gog or Magog of the Lord Mayor’s procession in the very flesh. At any rate, it is to be remembered that, the world over, together with the _Imitation of Christ_ and _Madame Bovary_, the _Pilgrim’s Progress_ is the most read book in Christendom. And this we must put down to the artistic skill--to the power of presentation and of rendering of the author. For there is no other criterion of art but success, and the more lasting the success the better the art. I wish to strike that note very strongly because as soon as one begins to talk about an art misinterpretations come creeping in and one is at once suspected of at the least asserting one’s possession of superior knowledges or--let us say--of high-hatting one’s neighbour. Nothing is less true. The knowledge of the art of novel writing is open to every one who takes the trouble to like one book better than another and the literary tastes of men are fairly identical the world over and throughout time. The great art of the world is found in books that are familiar to millions, if not the world over, then, at any rate, down several ages of several continents.