Celestial City. Having a little time upon my hands, I resolved to
gratify a liberal curiosity by making a trip thither.
Accordingly, one fine morning after paying my bill at the hotel,
and directing the porter to stow my luggage behind a coach, I
took my seat in the vehicle and set out for the station-house. It
was my good fortune to enjoy the company of a gentleman--one Mr.
Smooth-it-away--who, though he had never actually visited the
Celestial City, yet seemed as well acquainted with its laws,
customs, policy, and statistics, as with those of the City of
Destruction, of which he was a native townsman. Being, moreover,
a director of the railroad corporation and one of its largest
stockholders, he had it in his power to give me all desirable
information respecting that praiseworthy enterprise.

Our coach rattled out of the city, and at a short distance from
its outskirts passed over a bridge of elegant construction, but
somewhat too slight, as I imagined, to sustain any considerable
weight. On both sides lay an extensive quagmire, which could not
have been more disagreeable either to sight or smell, had all the
kennels of the earth emptied their pollution there.

"This," remarked Mr. Smooth-it-away, "is the famous Slough of
Despond--a disgrace to all the neighborhood; and the greater that
it might so easily be converted into firm ground."

"I have understood," said I, "that efforts have been made for
that purpose from time immemorial. Bunyan mentions that above
twenty thousand cartloads of wholesome instructions had been
thrown in here without effect."