Well, in the very forefront of his _Serious Reflections_, and in
connection with his long confinement in the island, Defoe makes Crusoe
tell the following story:--
"I have heard of a man that, upon some extraordinary disgust
which he took at the unsuitable conversation of some of his
nearest relations, whose society he could not avoid, suddenly
resolved never to speak any more. He kept his resolution most
rigorously many years; not all the tears or entreaties of his
friends--no, not of his wife and children--could prevail with him
to break his silence. It seems it was their ill-behaviour to him,
at first, that was the occasion of it; for they treated him with
provoking language, which frequently put him into undecent
passions, and urged him to rash replies; and he took this severe
way to punish himself for being provoked, and to punish them for
provoking him. But the severity was unjustifiable; it ruined his
family and broke up his house. His wife could not bear it, and
after endeavouring, by all the ways possible, to alter his rigid
silence, went first away from him, and afterwards from herself,
turning melancholy and distracted. His children separated, some
one way and some another way; and only one daughter, who loved
her father above all the rest, kept with him, tended him, talked
to him by signs, and lived almost dumb like her father _near
twenty-nine years with him; till being very sick, and in a high
fever, delirious as we call it, or light-headed, he broke his
silence_, not knowing when he did it, and spoke, though wildly at
first. He recovered of his illness afterwards, and frequently
talked with his daughter, but not much, and very seldom to
anybody else."
I italicise some very important words in the above story. Crusoe was
wrecked on his island on September 30th, 1659, his twenty-seventh
birthday. We are told that he remained on the island twenty-eight
years, two months and nineteen days. (Compare with duration of the
man's silence in the story.) This puts the date of his departure at
December 19th, 1687.
Now add twenty-seven years. We find that Defoe left _his_
solitude--whatever that may have been--on December 19th, 1714. Just at
that date, as all his biographers record, Defoe was struck down by a
fit of apoplexy and lay ill for six weeks. Compare this again with the
story.
You divine what is coming. Astounding as it may be, Mr. Wright
contends that Defoe himself was the original of the story: that Defoe,
provoked by his wife's irritating tongue, made a kind of vow to live
a life of silence--and kept it for more than twenty-eight years!
So far back as 1859 the egregious Chadwick nibbled at this theory in
his _Life and Times of Daniel Defoe, with Remarks Digressive and
Discursive_. The story, he says, "would be very applicable" to Defoe
himself, and again, "is very likely to have been taken from his own
life"; but at this point Chadwick maunders off with the remark that
"perhaps the domestic fireside of the poet or book-writer is not the
place we should go to in search of domestic happiness." Perhaps not;
but Chadwick, tallyhoing after domestic happiness, misses the scent.
Mr. Wright sticks to the scent and rides boldly; but is he after the
real fox?
* * * * *
April 20, 1895.
Can we believe it? Can we believe that on the 30th of September, 1686,
Defoe, provoked by his wife's nagging tongue, made a vow to live a
life of complete silence; that for twenty-eight years and a month or
two he never addressed a word to his wife or children; and that his
resolution was only broken down by a severe illness in the winter of
1714?
Mr. Aitken on Mr. Wright's hypothesis.
Mr. Aitken,[B] who has handled this hypothesis of Mr. Wright's, brings
several arguments against it, which, taken together, seem to me quite
conclusive. To begin with, several children were born to Defoe during
this period. He paid much attention to their education, and in 1713,
the penultimate year of this supposed silence, we find his sons
helping him in his work. Again, in 1703 Mrs. Defoe was interceding for
her husband's release from Newgate. Let me add that it was an age in
which personalities were freely used in public controversy; that Defoe
was continuously occupied with public controversy during these
twenty-eight years, and managed to make as many enemies as any man
within the four seas; and I think the silence of his adversaries upon
a matter which, if proved, would be discreditable in the extreme, is
the best of all evidence that Mr. Wright's hypothesis cannot be
sustained. Nor do I see how Mr. Wright makes it square with his own
conception of Defoe's character. "Of a forgiving temper himself," says
Mr. Wright on p. 86, "he (Defoe) was quite incapable of understanding
how another person could nourish resentment." This of a man whom the
writer asserts to have sulked in absolute silence with his wife and
family for twenty-eight years, two months, and nineteen days!
An inherent improbability.
At all events it will not square with _our_ conception of Defoe's
character. Those of us who have an almost unlimited admiration for
Defoe as a master of narrative, and next to no affection for him as a
man, might pass the heartlessness of such conduct. "At first sight,"
Mr. Wright admits, "it may appear monstrous that a man should for so
long a time abstain from speech with his own family." Monstrous,
indeed--but I am afraid we could have passed that. Mr. Wright, who has
what I may call a purfled style, tells us that--
"To narrate the career of Daniel Defoe is to tell a tale of
wonder and daring, of high endeavour and marvellous success. To
dwell upon it is to take courage and to praise God for the
splendid possibilities of life.... Defoe is always the hero; his
career is as thick with events as a cornfield with corn; his
fortunes change as quickly and as completely as the shapes in a
kaleidoscope--he is up, he is down, he is courted, he is spurned;
it is shine, it is shower, it is _couleur de rose_, it is
Stygian night. Thirteen times he was rich and poor. Achilles was
not more audacious, Ulysses more subtle, Æneas more pious."
That is one way of putting it. Here is another way (as the cookery
books say):--"To narrate the career of Daniel Defoe is to tell a tale
of a hosier and pantile maker, who had a hooked nose and wrote tracts
indefatigably--he was up, he was down, he was in the Pillory, he was
at Tooting; it was _poule de soie_, it was leather and prunella; and
it was always tracts. Æneas was not so pious a member of the Butchers'
Company; and there are a few milestones on the Dover Road; but Defoe's
life was as thick with tracts as a cornfield with corn." These two
estimates may differ here and there; but on one point they agree--that
Defoe was an extremely restless, pushing, voluble person, who could as
soon have stood on his head for twenty-eight years, two months, and
nineteen days as have kept silence for that period with any man or
woman in whose company he found himself frequently alone. Unless we
have entirely misjudged his character--and, I may add, unless Mr.
Wright has completely misrepresented the rest of his life--it simply
was not _in_ the man to keep this foolish vow for twenty-four hours.
No, I am afraid Mr. Wright's hypothesis will not do. And yet his plan
of adding twenty-seven years to each important date in Crusoe's
history has revealed so many coincident events in the life of Defoe
that we cannot help feeling he is "hot," as they say in the children's
game; that the wreck upon the island and Crusoe's twenty-eight years
odd of solitude do really correspond with some great event and
important period of Defoe's life. The wreck is dated 30th September,
1659. Add the twenty-seven years, and we come to September 30th, 1686.
Where was Defoe at that date, and what was he doing? Mr. Wright has to
confess that of his movements in 1686 and the two following years "we
know little that is definite." Certainly we know of nothing that can
correspond with Crusoe's shipwreck.
A suggestion.
But wait a moment--The _original_ editions of _Robinson Crusoe_ (and
most, if not all, later editions) give the date of Crusoe's departure
from the island as December 19th, 1686, instead of 1687. Mr. Wright
suggests that this is a misprint; and, to be sure, it does not agree
with the statement respecting the length of Crusoe's stay on the
island, _if we assume the date of the wreck to be correct_. But, (as
Mr. Aitken points out) the mistake must be the author's, not the
printer's, because in the next paragraph we are told that Crusoe
reached England in June, 1687, not 1688. I agree with Mr. Aitken; and
I suggest _that the date of Crusoe's arrival at the island, not the
date of his departure, is the date misprinted_. Assume for a moment
that the date of departure (December 19th, 1686) is correct. Subtract
the twenty-eight years, two months, and nineteen days of Crusoe's stay
on the island, and we get September 30th, 1658, as the date of the
wreck and his arrival at the island. Now add the twenty-seven years
which separate Crusoe's experiences from Defoe's, and we come to
September 30th, 1685. What was happening in England at the close of
September, 1685? Why, Jeffreys was carrying through his Bloody Assize.
"Like many other Dissenters," says Mr. Wright on p. 21, "Defoe
sympathised with Monmouth; and, to his misfortune, took part in the
rising." His comrades perished in it, and he himself, in Mr. Wright's
words, "probably had to lie low." There is no doubt that the Monmouth
affair was the beginning of Defoe's troubles: and I suggest that
certain passages in the story of Crusoe's voyage (_e.g._ the "secret
proposal" of the three merchants who came to Crusoe) have a peculiar
significance if read in this connection. I also think it possible
there may be a particular meaning in the several waves, so carefully
described, through which Crusoe made his way to dry land; and in the
simile of the reprieved malefactor (p. 50 in Mr. Aitken's delightful
edition); and in the several visits to the wreck.
I am no specialist in Defoe, but put this suggestion forward with the
utmost diffidence. And yet, right or wrong, I feel it has more
plausibility than Mr. Wright's. Defoe undoubtedly took part in the
Monmouth rising, and was a survivor of that wreck "on the south side
of the island": and undoubtedly it formed the turning-point of his
career. If we could discover how he escaped Kirke and Jeffreys, I am
inclined to believe we should have a key to the whole story of the
shipwreck. I should not be sorry to find this hypothesis upset; for
the story of Robinson Crusoe is quite good enough for me as it stands,
and without any sub-intention. But whatever be the true explanation
of the parable, if time shall discover it, I confess I expect it will
be a trifle less recondite than Mr. Wright's, and a trifle more
creditable to the father of the English novel.[C]