Даниэль Дефо – Robinson Crusoe (страница 2)
As the book was intended for an English market, Defoe has Crusoe teach Friday to speak the king’s tongue and convert to Christianity. There are then various further twists and turns to the plot that see Crusoe and Friday eventually arrive in England. What is more, Crusoe is able to claim back the wealth from his sugar plantation and live the rest of his life a wealthy man.
There is a forgotten sequel to
The story of Crusoe, in particular his time spent alone on his island, has remained an inspiration for many writers ever since. As well as inventing the novel, Defoe also invented the survival genre, so that any similar story is automatically seen to allude to
Table of Contents
CLASSIC LITERATURE: WORDS AND PHRASES
My Birth and Parentage – At Nineteen
elope with a Schoolfellow, and go to Sea –
Ship founders – Crew saved and landed
near Yarmouth
I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family, though not of that country, my father being a foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull. He got a good estate by merchandise, and, leaving off his trade, lived afterwards at York; from whence he had married my mother, whose relations were named
I had two elder brothers, one of which was lieutenant colonel to an English regiment of foot in Flanders, formerly commanded by the famous Colonel Lockhart, and was killed at the battle near Dunkirk against the Spaniards. What became of my second brother I never knew, any more than my father and mother did know what was become of me.
Being the third son of the family, and not bred to any trade, my head began to be filled very early with rambling thoughts. My father, who was very ancient, had given me a competent share of learning, as far as house-education and a country free school generally go, and designed me for the law; but I would be satisfied with nothing but going to sea; and my inclination to this led me so strongly against the will, nay, the commands of my father, and against all the entreaties and persuasions of my mother and other friends, that there seemed to be something fatal in that propensity of nature, tending directly to the life of misery which was to befall me.
My father, a wise and grave man, gave me serious and excellent counsel against what he foresaw was my design. He called me one morning into his chamber, where he was confined by the gout, and expostulated very warmly with me upon this subject. He asked me what reasons, more than a mere wandering inclination, I had for leaving my father’s house and my native country; where I might be well introduced, and had a prospect of raising my fortune by application and industry, with a life of ease and pleasure. He told me it was only men of desperate fortunes on the one hand, or of aspiring superior fortunes on the other, who went abroad upon adventures, to rise by enterprise, and make themselves famous in undertakings of a nature out of the common road; that these things were all either too far above me, or too far below me; and that mine was the middle state, or what might be called the upper station of
He bade me observe it, and I should always find, that the calamities of life were shared among the upper and lower part of mankind; but that the middle station had the fewest disasters, and was not exposed to so many vicissitudes as the higher or lower part of mankind: nay, they were not subjected to so many distempers and uneasiness, either of body or mind, as those were, who, by vicious living, luxury, and extravagances on one hand, or by hard labour, want of necessaries, and mean and insufficient diet, on the other hand, bring distempers upon themselves by the natural consequences of their way of living; that the middle station of life was calculated for all kind of virtues, and all kind of enjoyments; that peace and plenty were the handmaids of a middle fortune; that temperance, moderation, quietness, health, society, all agreeable diversions, and all desirable pleasures, were the blessings attending the middle station of life; that this way men went silently and smoothly through the world, and comfortably out of it; not embarrassed with the labours of the hands or of the head; not sold to a life of slavery for daily bread, or harassed with perplexed circumstances, which rob the soul of peace and the body of rest; not enraged with the passion of envy, or the secret burning lust of ambition for great things – but in easy circumstances sliding gently through the world, and sensibly tasting the sweets of living without the bitter; feeling that they are happy, and learning, by every day’s experience, to know it more sensibly.
After this he pressed me earnestly, and in the most affectionate manner, not to play the young man, or to precipitate myself into miseries, which nature, and the station of life I was born in, seemed to have provided against – that I was under no necessity of seeking my bread – that he would do well for me, and endeavour to enter me fairly into the station of life Which he had been just recommending to me; and that if I was not very easy and happy in the world it must be my mere fate, or fault, that must hinder it; and that he should have nothing to answer for, having thus discharged his duty, in warning me against measures which he knew would be to my hurt. In a word, that as he would do very kind things for me, if I would stay and settle at home as he directed, so he would not have so much hand in my misfortunes as to give me any encouragement to go away – and, to close all, he told me, I had my elder brother for my example, to whom he had used the same earnest persuasions to keep him from going into the Low Country wars, but could not prevail, his young desires prompting him to run into the army, where he was killed – and though he said he would not cease to pray for me, yet he would venture to say to me, that if I did take this foolish step, God would not bless me – and I would have leisure hereafter to reflect upon having neglected his counsel, when there might be none to assist in my recovery.
I observed, in this last part of his discourse, which was truly prophetic, though I suppose my father did not know it to be so himself – I say, I observed the tears run down his face very plentifully, especially when he spoke of my brother who was killed; and that when he spoke of my having leisure to repent, and none to assist me, he was so moved that he broke off the discourse, and told me his heart was so full he could say no more to me.
I was sincerely afflicted with this discourse – as, indeed, who could be otherwise? – and I resolved not to think of going abroad any more, but to settle at home according to my father’s desire. But, alas! a few days wore it all off; and, in short, to prevent any of my father’s further importunities, in a few weeks after, I resolved to run quite away from him. However, I did not act so hastily neither, as the first heat of my resolution prompted, but I took my mother at a time when I thought her a little pleasanter than ordinary, and told her that my thoughts were so entirely bent upon seeing the world, that I should never settle to anything with resolution enough to go through with it, and my father had better give me his consent, than force me to go without it – that I was now eighteen years old, which was too late to go apprentice to a trade, or clerk to an attorney, that I was sure if I did, I should never serve out my time, but I should certainly run away from my master before my time was out and go to sea – and if she would speak to my father to let me go one voyage abroad, if I came home again, and did not like it, I would go no more, and I would promise, by double diligence, to recover the time I had lost.