THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.

VOL. X--SEPTEMBER, 1862.--NO. LIX.




DAVID GAUNT.

Was ihr den Geist der Zeiten heisst, Das ist im Grund der Herren eigner
Geist.--FAUST

PART I.

What kind of sword, do you think, was that which old Christian had in
that famous fight of his with Apollyon, long ago? He cut the fiend to
the marrow with it, you remember, at last; though the battle went hardly
with him, too, for a time. Some of his blood, Banyan says, is on the
stones of the valley to this day. That is a vague record of the combat
between the man and the dragon in that strange little valley, with its
perpetual evening twilight and calm, its meadows crusted with lilies,
its herd-boy with his quiet song, close upon the precincts of hell. It
fades back, the valley and the battle, dim enough, from the sober
freshness of this summer morning. Look out of the window here, at the
hubbub of the early streets, the freckled children racing past to
school, the dewy shimmer of yonder willows in the sunlight, like drifts
of pale green vapor. Where is Apollyon? does he put himself into flesh
and blood, as then, nowadays? And the sword which Christian used, like a