Frontispiece of 1st edition of Robinson Cruose by Daniel Defoe from 1719
I recently decided to reread Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe at bedtime. Published in 1719, this novel is strikingly in tune with the sense of self in the present moment, and many phrases seem to have been written for anyone whose old life has been scorched by Covid, War or other cataclysm. Shipwrecked and stranded on a desert island, Robinson spent 28 long years in isolation. All of his former assets, ambitious plans, and even his hopes of a return to normal life turned to ashes. Sounds bleak and depressing, doesn’t it? Yet the novel is filled with vitality, resourcefulness, and rational optimism. In my opinion, this is the best novel about entrepreneurship I have ever read. Despite, or perhaps because of, its simplicity, the novel convincingly shows the transformation of one’s attitude toward dead-end circumstances, allowing one not to become feral, embittered by fate or go insane, but instead to be morally reborn. Following the change in personality, external circumstances gradually begin to improve. Below are a few quotes:
“I could not tell what part of the world this might be, otherwise than that I knew it must be part of America, and, as I concluded by all my observations, must be near the Spanish dominions, and perhaps was all inhabited by savages, where, if I had landed, I had been in a worse condition than I was now; and therefore I acquiesced in the dispositions of Providence, which I began now to own and to believe ordered everything for the best; I say I quieted my mind with this, and left off afflicting myself with fruitless wishes of being there.”
“First, I had no plough to turn up the earth—no spade or shovel to dig it. Well, this I conquered by making me a wooden spade, as I observed before; but this did my work but in a wooden manner; and though it cost me a great many days to make it, yet, for want of iron, it not only wore out soon, but made my work the harder, and made it be performed much worse. However, this I bore with, and was content to work it out with patience, and bear with the badness of the performance. “
“I overcame this obstacle by making myself a wooden shovel. But what a tool is, what a job is… However, I reconciled myself to it: armed with patience and not embarrassed by the quality of my work, I continued to dig.”
“I had now brought my state of life to be much easier in itself than it was at first, and much easier to my mind, as well as to my body. I frequently sat down to meat with thankfulness, and admired the hand of God’s providence, which had thus spread my table in the wilderness. I learned to look more upon the bright side of my condition, and less upon the dark side, and to consider what I enjoyed rather than what I wanted; and this gave me sometimes such secret comforts, that I cannot express them; and which I take notice of here, to put those discontented people in mind of it, who cannot enjoy comfortably what God has given them, because they see and covet something that He has not given them. All our discontents about what we want appeared to me to spring from the want of thankfulness for what we have.”
Yours sincerely,
-Alexander
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