'This miry Slough is such a place as cannot be mended; it is the descent whither the scum and filth that attends conviction for sin doth continually run, and therefore is it called the Slough of Despond: for still as the sinner is awakened about his lost condition, there ariseth in his soul many fears, and doubts, and discouraging apprehensions, which all of them get together, and settle in this place; and this is the reason of the badness of this ground.'〔John Bunyan, ''The Pilgrim's Progress'', edited with an introduction by Roger Sharrock, (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1965), 46; James Thomas paraphrases it: "It is the low ground where the scum and filth of a guilty conscience, caused by conviction of sin, continually gather, and for this reason it is called the Slough of Despond." ''Pilgrim's Progress in Today's English'', James H. Thomas, ed., (1964), 18.〕

"The Padre was looking more haggard and wild-eyed than ever. He had thought that he would never be able to reach the banqueting hall because he had had to cross the stretch of open lawn swept by musket fire and grape which lay between the Church and the hall and which he had thought of as the Slough of Despond." (1973)