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Robinson Crusoeby Daniel Defoerobinson crusoe 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 afterward at York, from
whence he had married my mother, whose relations were named
Robinson, a good family in that country, and from whom I was called
Robinson Kreutznear; but by the usual corruption of words in England
we are now called, nay, we call ourselves, and write our name, Crusoe,
and so my companions always called me.
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 goes, 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
propension 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 fortunes by application
and industry, with a life of ease and pleasure. He told me it was
for men of desperate fortunes on 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; that mine was the middle state, or what might
be called the upper station of low life, which he had found by long
experience was the best state in the world, the most suited to human
happiness, not exposed to the miseries and hardships, the labor and
sufferings, of the mechanic part of mankind, and not embarrassed
with the pride, luxury, ambition, and envy of the upper part of
mankind. He told me I might judge of the happiness of this state by
one thing, viz., that this was the state of life which all other
people envied; that kings have frequently lamented the miserable
consequences of being born to great things, and wished they had been
placed in the middle of the two extremes, between the mean and the
great; that the wise man gave his testimony to this as the just
standard of true felicity, when he prayed to have neither poverty
nor riches. the feeling of the robinson crusoe He bid 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
extravagancies on one hand, or by hard labor, want of necessaries, and
mean or 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 labors of the hands or of the
head, not sold to the 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 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, not 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 endeavor 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 an 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,
and 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. Booke of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe I was sincerely affected 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
farther importunities, in a few weeks after I resolved to run quite
away from him. However, I did not act so hastily neither as my first
heat of 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, and 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 but one voyage abroad, if
I came home again and did not like it, I would go no more, and I would
promise by a double diligence to recover that time I had lost.
This put my mother into a great passion. She told me she knew it
would be to no purpose to speak to my father upon any such subject;
that he knew too well what was my interest to give his consent to
anything so much for my hurt, and that she wondered how I could
think of any such thing after such a discourse as I had had with my
father, and such kind and tender expressions as she knew my father had
used to me; and that, in short, if I would ruin myself there was no
help for me; but I might depend I should never have their consent to
it; that for her part, she should not have so much hand in my
destruction, and I should never have it to say, that my mother was
willing when my father was not.
Though my mother refused to move it to my father, yet, as I have
heard afterwards, she reported all the discourse to him, and that my
father, after showing a great concern at it, said to her with a
sigh, "That boy might be happy if he would stay at home, but if he
goes abroad he will be the miserablest wretch that was ever born: I
can give no consent to it."
It was not till almost a year after this that I broke loose,
though in the meantime I continued obstinately deaf to all proposals
of settling to business, and frequently expostulating with my father
and mother about their being so positively determined against what
they knew my inclinations prompted me to. But being one day at Hull,
where I went casually, and without any purpose of making an
elopement that time; but I say, being there, and one of my
companions being going by sea to London, in his father's ship, and
prompting me to go with them, with the common allurement of sea-faring
men, viz., that it should cost me nothing for my passage, I
consulted neither father nor mother any more, nor so much as sent them
word of it; but leaving them to hear of it as they might, without
asking God's blessing, or my father's, without any consideration of
circumstances or consequences, and in an ill hour, God knows, on the
first of September, 1651, I went on board a ship bound for London.
Never any young adventurer's misfortunes, I believe began sooner, or
continued longer than mine. The ship was no sooner gotten out of the
Humber, but the wind began to blow, and the waves to rise in a most
frightful manner; and as I had never been at sea before, I was most
inexpressibly sick in body, and terrified in my mind. robinson crusoe foreigner author and their books name
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