Robinson Crusoe

“ And, as if to furnish you with a fresh piece of evidence, yonder appears Robinson Crusoe himself, in his coat of skins, and bearing his musket and huge umbrella.
Instead of Man Friday, Will Atkins, and the rest, you see donkeys carrying laughing children and led by queer-looking old women. And you heave a little sigh when you think: "How few of these French boys and girls really know old Crusoe and his adventures! ”

“ The next week the long [22] summer vacation began, and Robert read Robinson Crusoe through again from beginning to end. He spent almost all his time in thinking about the man alone on the island; and I dare say he very often dreamed about the goats, the cat, the parrot, and Man Friday.
He used to lie for hours together under the great elm tree behind the house fancying [23] what a famous Crusoe he would make; and wishing he could be cast away upon a lonely island, and there live in a cave, with a cat and a parrot. ”

“ He struggled to his feet with my assistance, and stood for a moment, looking backwards and forwards between Robinson Crusoe and me, apparently at a loss to discover which of us had surprised him most. The verdict ended in favour of the book. Holding it open before him in both hands, he surveyed the wonderful volume with a stare of unutterable anticipation—as if he expected to see Robinson Crusoe himself walk out of the pages, and favor us with a personal interview. ”

“ Robinson Crusoe is eagerly read by young people; and there is hardly a child so devoid of imagination as not to have supposed for himself a solitary island, in which he could act 'Robinson Crusoe,' were it but in a corner of the nursery. Neither does a re-perusal, at a more advanced age, diminish early impressions. The situation is such as every man may make his own. ”

“ I was going to set the ensign as a signal of distress, so that some vessel can see it, and come and take us off.”
“That’s just as bad,” said Mr. Crusoe. “You are getting tired of this place, and want to get away from me. You’re an ungrateful boy. There’s hardly another boy living who wouldn’t be glad to be shipwrecked on Robinson Crusoe’s own island, and yet you can’t appreciate it, and want to get away.”
“But, Mr. Crusoe,” I said, “we must get away from here some time, you know, and we never will unless some ship comes and takes us off.” ”

“ Here was I, a poor Robinson Crusoe, alone and desolate on an unknown island. I tried to penetrate the dark future and discover what fate still held in store for me. By this time the day had passed into afternoon, and I felt the necessity of preparing for the coming night. My great fear was that the island was inhabited by savages, and if so I had preserved my life to little purpose, for I should, upon being discovered, probably be killed at once, or else be made to drag out a miserable existence as their slave, or be kept a captive by them for the term of my natural life. ”

“ The work of society is now so comfortably divided that one seldom dreams of being his own mechanic, farmer, hunter, herdsman, cook and tailor, as Crusoe was. Thinking of his experience we are brought face to face with our dependence on others, with our debt to the countless, unnamed men whose labor made civilization possible. We understand also the pioneers, who in the far, lonely places of the earth have won a home and country from the wilderness.
When the adventures are duly appreciated we discover another charm of Robinson Crusoe, namely, its intense reality. ”

“ THE POOREST MAN IN THE WORLD. Robinson Crusoe, shipwrecked on a lonely island, furnishes a picture of woe and desolation which it would be difficult to exaggerate, and yet, through his invention and enterprise, frugality and foresight, he transformed inhospitable shores into a garden of plenty. He conquered nature, by reason of his kindly acts even the wild animals learned to love him and the ferocious savages gave him their trust. In strong contrast to him is the man who heaps opulence upon greed and by his selfishness separates himself from the companionship of men. ”

“ The book tells how Robinson Crusoe lived on the island, what he had to eat, and how he obtained it; how [12] he built a boat, and could not get it into the water, and then built another, and did get it into the water; about his dog and goats, his cat and his parrots, and his Man Friday.
The poor man lived alone for a long time, and most of us would think he could not have been very happy, away from his country and friends, with no one to speak to but his cat and goats, and his Man [13] Friday, and none of them could understand him.
Robert Gray didn’t think so. ”

“ I had virtually made the circuit of the island; for from where I sat I could see the margin of Perseverance Bay, which, if I followed, would end in landing me at the mouth of Stillwater Cove, near my hut.
I saw that my task was completed, and that I was alone on my island, the only living human being, the latter-day Robinson Crusoe. My feelings were those of joy and grief,—joy, that it had pleased Providence to keep me out of the hands of savages, where I could pass my life in peace, if it was so willed; grief, that I should be forced to this lonely and solitary life. ”

“ Not one person in ten—nay, not one person in five hundred, has, during the perusal of Robinson Crusoe, the most remote conception that any particle of genius, or even of common talent, has been employed in its creation! Men do not look upon it in the light of a literary performance. Defoe has none of their thoughts—Robinson all. The powers which have wrought the wonder have been thrown into obscurity by the very stupendousness of the wonder they have wrought! ”

“ What would you do, Robert, when the Indians came to the island?”
“I would do just as Robinson Crusoe did. I would [20] shoot as many of them as I could. I would catch one of them, and make him be my Man Friday.”
“Suppose they should happen to shoot you instead; and then broil you for their supper? Don’t you think you would ‘make a dainty dish to set before the king’?”
“I am certain that I could get along just as well as Robinson Crusoe did.”
[21] “Perhaps not; every one don’t get out of a scrape as easily as Robinson Crusoe did. ”

“ I, poor miserable Robinson Crusoe, being shipwrecked, during a dreadful storm, in the offing, came on shore on this dismal unfortunate island, which I called the ISLAND OF DESPAIR; all the rest of the ship's company being drowned, and myself almost dead.
All the rest of that day I spent in afflicting myself at the dismal circumstances I was brought to, viz. I had neither food, house, clothes, weapon, nor place to fly to: and, in despair of any relief, saw nothing but death before me; that I should either be devoured by wild beasts, murdered by savages, or starved to death for want of food. ”

“ The great success of Robinson Crusoe induced its author to write a number of other lives and adventures, some of which were popular in their times, though at present nearly forgotten. One of his latest publications was "A Tour through the Island of Great Britain," a performance of very [pg xv] inferior merit; but De Foe was now the garrulous old man, and his spirit (to use the words of an ingenious biographer) "like a candle struggling in the socket, blazed and sunk, blazed and sunk, till it disappeared at length in total darkness." ”

“ I wonder if Robinson Crusoe discovered it."
"If Robinson Crusoe didn't discover it, he lived it," she rejoined gaily; and then, as the voice of Mrs. Berkeley was heard purring softly on Vetch's other side, Corinna turned to the bewhiskered General, whose only sense, she had already ascertained, was the historic sense.
While she leaned back, with her head bent in the direction of his husky voice, she was visited by a piercing realization of the emptiness, the artificiality of her life. Futility—weariness—disenchantment—a gray lane without a turning that stretched on into nothingness! ”

“ Few things, in an ordinary life, can come up to the interest which every reader of sensibility must take in the author of Robinson Crusoe. ‘Heaven lies about us in our infancy;’ and it cannot be denied, that the first perusal of that work makes a part of the illusion:—the roar of the waters is in our ears,—we start at the print of the foot in the sand, and hear the parrot repeat the well-known sounds of ‘Poor Robinson Crusoe! ”

“ On their return they went nearer to the island, and their cries had roused him from his uneasy slumber. Robert heard [93] them call his name, and his fears vanished.
“Halloo!” he shouted in reply.
“Where are you?” asked one of the men in the boat.
“On the island.”
In a moment more, the boat touched the shore, where Robinson Crusoe, Jr., shivering with cold, was waiting for them.
“What in the world are [94] you doing here? Where is your raft?” asked Mr. Green, who was in the boat.
“I pulled it to pieces, for I meant to stay here and be a Robinson Crusoe,” answered Robert. ”

“ Two famous books that seem to follow naturally after Pilgrim's Progress are Defoe's Robinson Crusoe and Swift's Gulliver's Travels. Not to be familiar with these two English masterpieces is to miss allusions which occur in everyday reading even of newspapers and magazines. Probably not one American boy in one thousand is ignorant of Robinson Crusoe. It is the greatest book of adventure for boys that has ever been written, because it relates the novel and exciting experiences of a castaway sailor on a solitary island in a style so simple that a child of six is able to understand it. ”

“ The charm of De Foe's works, especially of Robinson Crusoe, is founded on the same principle. It always interests, never agitates. Crusoe himself is merely a representative of humanity in general; neither his intellectual nor his moral qualities set him above the middle degree of mankind; his only prominent characteristic is the spirit of enterprise and wandering, which is, nevertheless, a very common disposition. You will observe that all that is wonderful in this tale is the result of external circumstances ­ of things which fortune brings to Crusoe's hand. ”

“ Finding that Robinson Crusoe was such a success, Defoe began to write other stories. He wrote of thieves, pirates and rogues. These stories have the same show of truth as Robinson Crusoe. Defoe, no doubt, got the ideas for them from the stories of the rogues with whom he mixed in prison. But they have nearly all been forgotten, for although they are clever the heroes and heroines are coarse and the story of their adventures is unpleasant reading. Yet as history, showing us the state of the people in the days of Queen Anne and of George I, they are useful. ”

“ Robinson Crusoe stands alone among English books, a perennial fountain of instruction and pleasure. It aids in educating each new generation: children read it for its incident; men to renew their youth; literary scholars to discover what it teaches of its time and of its author's genius. Its influence continues unabated; it incites boys to maritime adventure, and shows them how to use in emergency whatever they find at hand. It does more: it tends to reclaim the erring by its simple homilies ”

“ Upon my exploration depended all my security for the future. Should I find the island inhabited, a long farewell to all content. If uninhabited, I could, I felt certain, take care of myself till it pleased God to remove me from the solitude to which I was tied. I envied the old Robinson Crusoe, to whom I likened myself, and thought, why could not I have been as fortunate as he; if the "Good Luck" must be destroyed why could she not have come ashore on this island where I could have saved something from her, and, more precious yet, some of the lives of my shipmates? ”

“ Of that temptation, Robinson Crusoe on his desert island knew nothing. He did not find himself ever tempted to one of the most common of sins. Robinson Crusoe was never tempted to keep bad company, for the simple reason that there was no bad company for him to keep.
What curious beings hermits are! they are to be found in China, India, Africa, in various parts of Europe, in fact, all over the world. And in olden time there was many a lonely cave, many a shady retreat on the hill-side, which was inhabited by one of these hermits. ”

“ You are not to take it, if you please, as the saying of an ignorant man, when I express my opinion that such a book as Robinson Crusoe never was written, and never will be written again. I have tried that book for years—generally in combination with a pipe of tobacco—and I have found it my friend in need in all the necessities of this mortal life. When my spirits are bad—Robinson Crusoe. When I want advice—Robinson Crusoe. In past times when my wife plagued me; in present times when I have had a drop too much—Robinson Crusoe. ”

“ De Foe did unquestionably possess the capacity to put into his story the appearance of sincerity that persuades belief at a glance. In that much he had the spark of genius; yet that same case has not availed to make the “Journal” of the Plague anything more than a curious and laborious conceit, while Robinson Crusoe stands among the first books of the world—a marvelous gleam of living interest, inextinguishably fresh and heartening to the imagination of every reader who has sensibility two removes above a toad. ”

“ Yet the mature reader who takes up Robinson Crusoe will find it full of charm, because he can see the art of the novelist, revealed in that passion for minute detail to which we have come to give the name of realism, and that spiritual quality which makes the reader a sharer in the fears, the loneliness and the simple faith of the sailor who lived alone for so many years on Juan Fernandez Island. ”