The Delicious Vice Read online

  IV. THE FIRST NOVEL TO READ

  CONTAINING SOME SCANDALOUS REMARKS ABOUT "ROBINSON CRUSOE"

  The very best First-Novel-To-Read in all fiction is "Robinson Crusoe."There is no dogmatism in the declaration; it is the announcement of afact as well ascertained as the accuracy of the multiplication table.It is one of the delights of novel reading that you may have any opinionyou please and fire it off with confidence, without gainsay. Those whodiffer with you merely have another opinion, which is not sacred andcannot be proved any more than yours. All of the elements of supremetest of imaginative interest are in "Robinson Crusoe." Love is absent,but that is not a test; love appeals to persons who cannot read orwrite--it is universal, as hunger and thirst.

  The book-reading boy is easily discovered; you always catch him readingbooks. But the novel-reading boy has a system of his own, a sort ofinstinctive way of getting the greatest excitement out of the story, thevery best run for his money. This sort of boy soon learns to sit withhis feet drawn up on the upper rung of a chair, so that from the kneesto the thighs there is a gentle declivity of about thirty degrees;the knees are nicely separated that the book may lie on them withoutholding. That involves one of the most cunning of psychological secrets;because, if the boy is not a novel reader, he does not want the book tolie open, since every time it closes he gains just that much reliefin finding the place again. The novel-reading boy knows the trick ofimmortal wisdom; he can go through the old book cases and pick thetreasures of novels by the way they lie open; if he gets hold of a newor especially fine edition of his father's he need not be told to wrenchit open in the middle and break the back of the binding--he does itinstinctively.

  There are other symptoms of the born novel reader to be observed in him.If he reads at night he is careful to so place his chair that the lightwill fall on the page from a direction that will ultimately ruin theeyes--but it does not interfere with the light. He humps himself overthe open volume and begins to display that unerring curvalinearity ofthe spine that compels his mother to study braces and to fear that hewill develop consumption. Yet you can study the world's health recordsand never find a line to prove that any man with "occupation orprofession--novel reading" is recorded as dying of consumption. Thehumped-over attitude promotes compression of the lungs, telescoping ofthe diaphragm, atrophy of the abdominal abracadabra and otherthings (see Physiological Slush, p. 179, et seq.);but--it--never--hurts--the--boy!

  To a novel reading boy the position is one of instinct, like that ofthe bicycle racer. His eyes are strained, his nerves and muscles attension--everything ready for excitement--and the book, lying open,leaves his hands perfectly free to drum on the sides of the chair, slaphis legs and knees, fumble in his pockets or even scratch his head asemotion or interest demand. Does anybody deny that the highest proof ofspecial genius is the possession of the instinct to adapt itself to thematter in hand? Nothing more need be said.

  * * * * *

  Now, if you will observe carefully such a boy when he comes to a certainpoint in "Robinson Crusoe" you may recognize the stroke of fate in hisdestiny. If he's the right sort, he will read gayly along; he drums,he slaps himself, he beats his breast, he scratches his head. Suddenlythere will come the shock. He is reading rapidly and gloriously.He finds his knife in his pocket, as usual, and puts it back; thetop-string is there; he drums the devil's tattoo, he wets his fingerand smears the margin of the page as he whirls it over and then--hefinds--"The--Print--of--a--Man's--Naked--Foot--on--the--Shore!!!"

  Oh, Crackey! At this tremendous moment the novel reader who has geniusdrums no more. His hands have seized the upper edges of the muslin lids,he presses the lower edges against his stomach, his back takes anadded intensity of hump, his eyes bulge, his heart thumps--he islanded--landed!

  Terror, surprise, sympathy, hope, skepticism, doubt--come all yetrooping emotions to threaten or console; but an end has come to fairystories and wonder tales--Master Studious is in the awful presence ofHuman Nature.

  * * * * *

  For many years I have believed that thatPrint--of--a--Man's--Naked--Foot was set in italic type in all editionsof "Robinson Crusoe." But a patient search of many editions hasconvinced me that I must have been mistaken.

  The passage comes sneaking along in the midst of a paragraph in commonRoman letters and by the living jingo! you discover it just as Mr.Crusoe discovered the footprint itself!

  No story ever written exhibits so profoundly either the perfectdesign of supreme genius or the curious accidental result of slovenlycarelessness in a hack-writer. This is not said in any critical spirit,because, Robinson Crusoe, in one sense, is above criticism, andin another it permits the freest analysis without suffering in theestimation of any reader.

  But for Robinson Crusoe, De Foe would never have ranked above the levelof his time. It is customary for critics to speak in awe of the "Journalof the Plague" and it is gravely recited that that book deceived thegreat Dr. Meade. Dr. Meade must have been a poor doctor if De Foe'saccuracy of description of the symptoms and effects of disease is notvastly superior to the detail he supplies as a sailor and solitaire upona desert island. I have never been able to finish the "Journal."The only books in which his descriptions smack of reality are "MollFlanders" and "Roxana," which will barely stand reading these days.

  In what may be called its literary manner, Robinson Crusoe is entirelylike the others. It convinces you by its own conviction of sincerity.It is simple, wandering yet direct; there is no making of "points" ormoving to climaxes. De Foe did unquestionably possess the capacity toput into his story the appearance of sincerity that persuades belief ata glance. In that much he had the spark of genius; yet that same casehas not availed to make the "Journal" of the Plague anything more thana curious and laborious conceit, while Robinson Crusoe stands amongthe first books of the world--a marvelous gleam of living interest,inextinguishably fresh and heartening to the imagination of every readerwho has sensibility two removes above a toad.

  The question arises, then, is "Robinson Crusoe" the calculated triumphof deliberate genius, or the accidental stroke of a hack who fell upon agolden suggestion in the account of Alexander Selkirk and increasedits value ten thousand fold by an unintentional but rather perfectmarshaling of incidents in order, and by a slovenly ignorance ofcharacter treatment that enhanced the interest to perfect intensity?This question may be discussed without undervaluing the book, theextraordinary merit of which is shown in the fact that, while its ideahas been paraphrased, it has never been equalled. The "Swiss FamilyRobinson," the "Schonberg-Cotta Family" for children are full of meritand far better and more carefully written, but there are only the desertisland and the ingenious shifts introduced. Charles Reade in "HardCash," Mr. Mallock in his "Nineteenth Century Romance," Clark Russel in"Marooned," and Mayne Reid, besides others, have used the same theater.But only in that one great book is the theater used to display thesimple, yearning, natural, resolute, yet doubting, soul and heart of manin profound solitude, awaiting in armed terror, but not without purpose,the unknown and masked intentions of nature and savagery. It seemsto me--and I have been tied to Crusoe's chariot wheels for a dozenreadings, I suppose--that it is the pressing in upon your emotions ofthe immensity of the great castaway's solitude, in which he appears likesome tremendous Job of abandonment, fighting an unseen world, which isthe innate note of its power.

  * * * * *

  The very moment Friday becomes a loyal subject, the suspense relaxesinto pleased interest, and after Friday's funny father and the Spaniardand others appear it becomes a common book. As for the second part ofthe adventures I do not believe any matured man ever read it a secondtime unless for curious or literary purposes. If he did he must be oneof that curious but simple family that have read the second part of"Faust," "Paradise Regained," and the "Odyssey," and who now peruse"Clarissa Harlowe" and go carefully over the catalogue of ships inthe "Iliad" as a preparation for enjo
ying the excitements of the citydirectory.

  Every particle of greatness in "Robinson Crusoe" is compressed withintwo hundred pages, the other four hundred being about as mediocre trashas you could purchase anywhere between cloth lids.

  * * * * *

  It is interesting to apply subjective analysis to Robinson Crusoe. Thebook in its very greatness has turned more critical swans into geesethan almost any other. They have praised the marvelous ingenuity withwhich De Foe described how the castaway overcame single-handed, thedeprivations of all civilized conveniences; they have marveled at thesimple method in which all his labors are marshaled so as to render hisconversion of the island into a home the type of industrial and even ofsocial progress and theory; they have rhapsodized over the perfectionof De Foe's style as a model of literary strength and artisticverisemblance. Only a short time ago a mighty critic of a greatLondon paper said seriously that "Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver appealinfinitely more to the literary reader than to the boy, who doesnot want a classic but a book written by a contemporary." What anextraordinary boy that must be! It is probable that few boys care forGulliver beyond his adventures in Lilliput and Brobdignag, but theydevour that much, together with Robinson Crusoe, with just as muchavidity now as they did a century ago. Your clear-headed, healthy boy isthe first best critic of what constitutes the very liver and lights ofa novel. Nothing but the primitive problems of courage meeting peril,virtue meeting vice, love, hatred, ambition for power and glory, willgo down with him. The grown man is more capable of dealing with socialsubtleties and the problems of conscience, but those sorts of books donot last unless they have also "action--action--action."

  Will the New Zealander, sitting amidst the prophetic ruins of St.Paul's, invite his soul reading Robert Elsmere? Of course you can't saywhat a New Zealander of that period might actually do; but what wouldyou think of him if you caught him at it? The greatest stories of theworld are the Bible stories, and I never saw a boy--intractable ofacquiring the Sunday-school habit though he may have been--who wouldn'tlay his savage head on his paws and quietly listen to the good old talesof wonder out of that book of treasures.

  * * * * *

  So let us look into the interior of our faithful old friend, RobinsonCrusoe, and examine his composition as a literary whole. From the momentthat Crusoe is washed ashore on the island until after the release ofFriday's father and the Spaniard from the hands of the cannibals, thereis no book in print, perhaps, that can surpass it in interest and thestrained impression it makes upon the unsophisticated mind. It isall comprised in about 200 pages, but to a boy to whom the world isa theater of crowded action, to whom everything seems to have comeready-made, to whom the necessity of obedience and accommodation toothers has been conveyed by constant friction--here he finds himselffor the first time face to face with the problem of solitude. He canappreciate the danger from wild animals, genii, ghosts, battles, siegesand sudden death, but in no other book before, did he ever come upon ahuman being left solitary, with all these possible dangers to face.

  The voyages on the raft, the house-building, contriving, fearing,praying, arguing--all these are full of plaintive pathos and yet ofencouragement. He witnesses despair turned into comfortable resignationas the result of industry. It has required about twelve years. Virtue isapparently fattening upon its own reward, when--Smash! Bang!--our youngreader runs upon "the--print--of--a--man's--naked--foot!" and securityand happiness, like startled birds, are flown forever. For twelve moreyears this new unseen terror hangs over the poor solitary. Then wehave Friday, the funny cannibals later and it is all over. But the vastsolitude of that poor castaway has entered the imagination of the youthand dominates it.

  These two hundred pages are crowded with suggestions that set a boy'smind on fire, yet every page contains evidence of obvious slovenliness,indolence and ignorance of human nature and common things, half of whichfaults seem directly to contribute to the result, while the other halfare never noticed by the reader.

  How many of you, who sniff at this, know Crusoe's real name? Yet itstares right out of the very first paragraphs in the book--a clean,perhaps accidental, proof of good scholarship, which De Foe possessed.Crusoe tells us his father was a German from Bremen, who married anEnglishwoman, from whose family name of Robinson came the son's namewhich was properly Robinson Kreutznaer. This latter name, he explains,became corrupted in the common English speech into Crusoe. That is anexcellent touch. The German pronunciation of Kreutznaer would sound likeKrites-nare, and a mere dry scholar would have evolved Crysoe out of thename. But the English-speaking people everywhere, until within the pasttwenty years or so, have given the German "eu" the sound of "oo" or "u."Robinson's father therefore was called Crootsner until it was shavedinto Crootsno and thence smoothed to Crusoe.

  But what was the Christian name of the elder Kreutznaer? Or of the boy'smother? Or of his brothers or sisters? Or of the first ship captainunder whom he sailed; or any of them; or even of the ship he commanded,and in which he was wrecked; or of the dog that he carried to theisland; or of the two cats; or of the first and all the other tamegoats; or of the inlet; or of Friday's father; or of the Spaniard hesaved; or of the ship captain; or of the ship that finally saved him?Who knows? The book is a desert as far as nomenclature goes--the onlyblossoms being his own name; that of Wells, a Brazilian neighbor; Xury,the Moorish boy; Friday, Poll, the parrot; and Will Atkins.

  * * * * *

  You may retort that all this doesn't matter. That is very true--and behanged to you!--but those facts prove by every canon of literary artthat Robinson Crusoe is either a coldly calculated flight of consummategenius or an accidental freak of hack literature. When De Foe wrote, itwas only a century after Drake and his companions in authorizedpiracy had made the British privateer the scourge of the seas and haddemonstrated that naval supremacy meant the control of the world. Theseafaring life was one of peril, but it carried with it honor, glory andenvy. Forty years later Nelson was born to crown British navalry withdeathless Glory. Even the commonest sailor spoke his ship's name--if itwere a fine vessel--with the same affection that he spoke his wife'sand cursed a bad ship by its name as if to tag its vileness withproverbiality.

  When De Foe wrote Alexander Selkirk, able seaman, was alive end hadtold his story of shipwreck to Sir Richard Steele, editor of the EnglishGentleman and of the Tattler, who wrote it up well--but not half as wellas any one of ten thousand newspaper men of today could do under similarcircumstances.

  Now who that has read of Selkirk and Dampierre and Stradling does notremember the two famous ships, the "Cinque Ports" and the "St. George?"In every actvial book of the times, ship's names were sprinkled over thepage as if they had been shaken out of the pepper box. But you inquirein vain the name of the slaver that wrecked "poor Robinson Crusoe"--aname that would have been printed on his memory beyond forgettingbecause of the very misfortune itself. Now the book is the autobiographyof a man whose only years of active life between eighteen and twenty-sixwere passed as a sailor. It was written apparently after he wasseventy-two years old, at the period when every trifling incident andname of youth would survive most brightly; yet he names no ships, nosailor mates, carefully avoids all knowledge of or advantage attachingto any parts of ships. It is out of character as a sailor's tale,showing that the author either did not understand the value of or wastoo indolent to acquire the ship knowledge that would give to his workthe natural smell of salt water and the bilge. It is a landlubber's seayarn.

  Is it in character as a revelation of human nature? No man like untoRobinson Crusoe ever did live, does live, or ever will live, unless as afreak deprived of human emotions. The Robinson Crusoe of Despair Islandwas not a castaway, but the mature politician. Daniel Defoe of NewgatePrison. The castaway would have melted into loving recollections; theimprisoned lampoonist would have busied himself with schemes, ideas,arguments and combinations for getting out, and getting on. This poo
rRobin on the island weeps over nothing but his own sorrows, and,while pretending to bewail his solitude, turns aside coldly fromcompanionships next only in affection to those of men. He has a dog, twoship's cats (of whose "eminent history" he promises something that isnever related), tame goats and parrots. He gives none of them a name,he does not occupy his yearning for companionship and love by preparingcomforts for them or by teaching them tricks of intelligence oramusement; and when he does make a stagger at teaching Poll to talk itis for the sole purpose of hearing her repeat "Poor Robin Crusoe!"The dog is dragged in to work for him, but not to be rewarded. He dieswithout notice, as do the cats, and not even a billet of wood markstheir graves.

  Could any being, with a drop of human blood in his veins, do that? Hethinks of his father with tears in his eyes--because he did not escapethe present solitude by taking the old man's advice! Does he recall hismother or any of the childish things that lie so long and deep inthe heart of every natural man? Does he ever wonder what his oldschool-fellows, Bob Freckles and Pete Baker, are doing these solitaryevenings when he sits under the tropics and hopes--could he not atleast hope it?--that they are, thank God, alive and happy at York? Hediscourses like a parson of the utterly impossible affection thatFriday had for his cannibal sire and tells you how noble, Christian andbeautiful it was--as if, by Jove! a little of that virtue wouldn't haveornamented his own cold, emotionless, fishy heart!

  He had no sentimental side. Think of those dreary, egotistic, awfulevenings, when, for more than twenty years this infernal hypocrite kepthimself company and tried patiently to deceive God by flattering Himabout religion! It is impossible. Why thought turns as certainly torevery and recollection as grass turns to seed. He married. What was hiswife's name? We know how much property she had. What were the names ofthe honest Portuguese Captain and the London woman who kept his money?The cold selfishness and gloomy egotism of this creature mark him as amonster and not as a man.

  * * * * *

  So the book is not in character as an autobiography, nor does it containa single softening emotion to create sympathy. Let us see whether itbe scholarly in its ease. The one line that strikes like a bolt oflightning is the height of absurdity. We have all laughed, afterwardof course, at that--single--naked--foot--print. It could not havebeen there without others, unless Friday were a one legged man, or wasplaying the good old Scots game of "hop-scotch!"

  But the foot-print is not a circumstance to the cannibals. All the stageburlesques of Robinson Crusoe combined could not produce such funnycannibals as he discovered. Crusoe's cannibals ate no flesh but thatof men! He had no great trouble contriving how to induce Friday to eatgoat's flesh! They took all the trouble to come to his island to indulgein picnics, during which they ate up folks, danced and then went homebefore night. When the big party of 31 arrived, they had with them oneother cannibal of Friday's tribe, a Spaniard, and Friday's father. Itappears they always carefully unbound a victim before despatching him.They brought Friday pere for lunch, although he was old, decrepit andthin--a condition that always unfits a man among all known cannibalsfor serving as food. They reject them as we do stringy old roosters forspring chickens in the best society. Then Friday, born a cannibal andconverted to Crusoe's peculiar religion, shows that in three years hehas acquired all the emotions of filial affection prevalent at that timeamong Yorkshire folk who attended dissenting chapels. More wonderfulstill! old Friday pere, immersed in age and cannibalism, has thecorresponding paternal feeling. Crusoe never says exactly where thesecannibals came from, but my own belief is that they came from thatlittle Swiss town whence the little wooden animals for toy Noah's Arksalso came.

  A German savant--one of the patient sort that spend half a life writinga monograph on the variation of spots on the butterfly's wings--couldget a philosophical dissertation on Doubt out of Crusoe's troubles withpens, ink and paper; also clothes. In the volume I am using, on page 86,third paragraph, he says: "I should lose my reckoning of time for wantof books, and pen and ink." So he kept it by notches in wood, he tellsin the fourth paragraph. In paragraph 5, same page, he says: "We areto observe that among the many things I brought out of the ship, Igot several of less value, etc., which I omitted setting down as inparticular pens, ink and paper!" Same paragraph, lower down: "I shallshow that while my ink lasted I kept things very exact, but after thatwas gone I could not make any ink by any means that I could devise."Page 87, second paragraph: "I wanted many things, notwithstanding allthe many things that I had amassed together, and of these ink was one!"Page 88, first paragraph: "I drew up my affairs in writing!" Now, byGeorge! did you ever hear of more appearing and disappearing pens, inkand paper?

  The adventures of his clothes were as remarkable as his own. On his veryfirst trip to the wreck, after landing, he went "rummaging for clothes,of which I found enough," but took no more than he wanted for presentuse. On the second trip he "took all the men's clothes" (and there werefifteen souls on board when she sailed). Yet in his famous debit andcredit calculations between good and evil he sets these down, page 88:

  EVIL | GOOD -------------------------------------------------- I have no clothes to | But I am in a hot climate, cover me. | where, if I had | clothes (!) I could hardly | wear them.

  On page 147, bewailing his lack of a sieve, he says: "Linen, I had nonebut what was mere rags."

  Page 158 (one year later): "My clothes, too, began to decay; as tolinen, I had had none a good while, except some checkered shirts, whichI carefully preserved, because many times I could bear no other clotheson. I had almost three dozen of shirts, several thick watch coats, toohot to wear."

  So he tried to make jackets out of the watch coats. Then this ingeniousgentleman, who had nothing to wear and was glad of it on account of theheat, which kept him from wearing anything but a shirt, and renderedwatch coats unendurable, actually made himself a coat, waistcoat,breeches, cap and umbrella of skins with the hair on and wore them ingreat comfort! Page 175 he goes hunting, wearing this suit, belted bytwo heavy skin belts, carrying hatchet, saw, powder, shot, his heavyfowling piece and the goatskin umbrella--total weight of baggage andclothes about ninety pounds. It must have been a cold day!

  Yet the first thing he does for the naked Friday thirteen years lateris to give him a pair--of--LINEN--trousers! Poor Robin Crusoe--what acolossal liar was wasted on a desert island!

  * * * * *

  Of course, no boy sees the blemishes in "Robinson Crusoe;" those areleft to the Infallible Critic. The book is as ludicrous as "Hamlet" fromone aspect and as profound as "Don Quixote" from another. In its pagesthe wonder tales and wonder facts meet and resolve; realism and idealismare joined--above all, there is a mystery no critic may solve. It isuseless to criticize genius or a miracle, except to increase its wonder.Who remembers anything in "Crusoe" but the touch of the wizard's hand?Who associates the Duke of Athens, Hermia and Helena, with Bottom andSnug, Titania, Oberon and Puck? Any literary master mechanic might realoff ten thousand yards of the Greek folks or of "Pericles," but when youwant something that runs thus:

  "I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows! Where oxlip and the nodding violet grows--."

  why, then, my masters, you must put up the price and employ a genius towork the miracle.

  Take all miracles without question. Whether work of genius or miracle ofaccident, "Robinson Crusoe" gives you a generous run for your money.