The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808)

by Daniel Defoe

to wear out a cold winter with, viz.plenty of provisions, such as the country afforded, a warm house, withfuel enough, and excellent company; of all which I shall give a fullaccount in its place.

  I was now in a quite different climate from my beloved island, where Inever felt cold, except when I had my ague; on the contrary, I had muchto do to bear my clothes on my back, and never made any fire but withoutdoors, for my necessity, in dressing my food, &c. Now I made me threegood vests, with large robes or gowns over them, to hang down to thefeet, and button close to the wrists, and all these lined with furs, tomake them sufficiently warm.

  As to a warm house, I must confess, I greatly dislike our way inEngland, of making fires in every room in the house, in open chimnies,which, when the fire was out, always kept the air in the room cold asthe climate. But taking an apartment in a good house in the town, Iordered a chimney to be built like a furnace, in the centre of sixseveral rooms, like a stove; the funnel to carry the smoke went up oneway, the door to come at the fire went in another, and all the roomswere kept equally warm, but no fire seen; like as they heat the bagniosin England.

  By this means we had always the same climate in all the rooms, and anequal heat was preserved; and how cold soever it was without, it wasalways warm within; and yet we saw no fire, nor were ever incommodedwith any smoke.

  The most wonderful thing of all was, that it should be possible to meetwith good company here, in a country so barbarous as that of the mostnortherly part of Europe, near the Frozen ocean, and within but a veryfew degrees of Nova Zembla.

  But this being the country where the state criminals of Muscovy, as Iobserved before, are all banished; this city was full of noblemen,princes, gentlemen, colonels, and, in short, all degrees of thenobility, gentry, soldiery, and courtiers of Muscovy. Here were thefamous prince Galilfken, or Galoffken, and his son; the old generalRobostisky, and several other persons of note, and some ladies.

  By means of my Scots merchant, whom, nevertheless, I parted with here, Imade an acquaintance with several of these gentlemen, and some of themof the first rank; and from these, in the long winter nights, in which Istaid here, I received several agreeable visits. It was talking onenight with a certain prince, one of the banished ministers of statebelonging to the czar of Muscovy, that my talk of my particular casebegan. He had been telling me abundance of fine things, of thegreatness, the magnificence, and dominions, and the absolute power ofthe emperor of the Russians. I interrupted him, and told him, I was agreater and more powerful prince than ever the czar of Muscovy was,though my dominions were not so large, or my people so many. TheRussian grandee looked a little surprised, and fixing his eyes steadilyupon me, began to wonder what I meant.

  I told him his wonder would cease when I had explained myself. First, Itold him, I had the absolute disposal of the lives and fortunes of allmy subjects: that notwithstanding my absolute power, I had not oneperson disaffected to my government or to my person, in all mydominions. He shook his head at that, and said, there, indeed, I outdidthe czar of Muscovy. I told him, that all the lands in my kingdom weremy own, and all my subjects were not only my tenants, but tenants atwill; that they would all fight for me to the last drop; and that nevertyrant, for such I acknowledged myself to be, was ever so universallybeloved, and yet so horribly feared, by his subjects.

  After amusing them with these riddles in government for awhile, I openedthe case, and told them the story at large of my living in the island,and how I managed both myself and the people there that were under me,just as I have since minuted it down. They were exceedingly taken withthe story, and especially the prince, who told me with a sigh, that thetrue greatness of life was to be master of ourselves; that he would nothave changed such a state of life as mine, to have been czar of Muscovy,and that he found more felicity in the retirement he seemed to bebanished to there, than ever he found in the highest authority heenjoyed in the court of his master the czar: that the height of humanwisdom was to bring our tempers down to our circumstances, and to make acalm within, under the weight of the greatest storm, without. When hecame first hither, he said, he used to tear the hair from his head, andthe clothes from his back, as others had done before him; but a littletime and consideration had made him look into himself, as well as roundhimself, to things without: that he found the mind of man, if it was butonce brought to reflect upon the state of universal life, and howlittle this world was concerned in its true felicity, was perfectlycapable of making a felicity for itself, fully satisfying to itself, andsuitable to its own best ends and desires, with but very littleassistance from the world; that air to breathe in, food to sustain life,clothes for warmth, and liberty for exercise, in order to health,completed, in his opinion, all that the world could do for us: andthough the greatness, the authority, the riches, and the pleasures,which some enjoyed in the world, and which he had enjoyed his share of,had much in them that was agreeable to us, yet he observed, that allthose things chiefly gratified the coarsest of our affections; such asour ambition, our particular pride, our avarice, our vanity, and oursensuality; all which were, indeed, the mere product of the worst partof man, were in themselves crimes, and had in them the seeds of allmanner of crimes; but neither were related to, or concerned with, any ofthose virtues that constituted us wise men, or of those graces whichdistinguished us as Christians; that being now deprived of all thefancied felicity which he enjoyed in the full exercise of all thosevices, he said, he was at leisure to look upon the dark side of them,where he found all manner of deformity; and was now convinced, thatvirtue only makes a man truly wise, rich, and great, and preserves himin the way to a superior happiness in a future state; and in this, hesaid, they were more happy in their banishment, than all their enemieswere, who had the full possession of all the wealth and power that they(the banished) had left behind them.

  "Nor, Sir," said he, "do I bring my mind to this politically, by thenecessity of my circumstances, which some call miserable; but if I knowany thing of myself, I would not go back, no not though my master, theczar, should call me, and offer to reinstate me in all my formergrandeur; I say, I would no more go back to it, than I believe my soul,when it shall be delivered from this prison of the body, and has had ataste of the glorious state beyond life, would come back to the gaol offlesh and blood it is now enclosed in, and leave Heaven to deal in thedirt and grime of human affairs."

  He spake this with so much warmth in his temper, so much earnestness andmotion of his spirits, which were apparent in his countenance, that itwas evident it was the true sense of his soul; and indeed there was noroom to doubt his sincerity.

  I told him, I once thought myself a kind of a monarch in my old station,of which I had given him an account, but that I thought he was not amonarch only, but a great conqueror; for that he that has got a victoryover his own exorbitant desires, and has the absolute dominion overhimself, and whose reason entirely governs his will, is certainlygreater than he that conquers a city. "But, my lord," said I, "shall Itake the liberty to ask you a question?"--"With all my heart," said he."If the door of your liberty was opened," said I, "would not you takehold of it to deliver yourself from this exile?"

  "Hold," said he, "your question is subtle, and requires some seriousjust distinctions to give it a sincere answer; and I'll give it you fromthe bottom of my heart. Nothing that I know of in this world would moveme to deliver myself from the state of banishment, except these two:first, the enjoyment of my relations; and secondly, a little warmerclimate. But I protest to you, that to go back to the pomp of the court,the glory, the power, the hurry of a minister of state; the wealth, thegaiety, and the pleasures, that is to say, follies of a courtier; if mymaster should send me word this moment, that he restores me to all hebanished me from, I protest, if I know myself at all, I would not leavethis wilderness, these deserts, and these frozen lakes, for the palaceof Moscow."

  "But, my lord," said I, "perhaps you not only are banished from thepleasures of the court, and from the power, and authority, and wealth,you enjoyed before
, but you may be absent too from some of theconveniencies of life; your estate, perhaps, confiscated, and youreffects plundered; and the supplies left you here may not be suitable tothe ordinary demands of life."

  "Ay," said he, "that is, as you suppose me to be a lord, or a prince,&c. So indeed I am; but you are now to consider me only as a man, ahuman creature, not at all distinguished from another; and so I cansuffer no want, unless I should be visited with sickness and distempers.However, to put the question out of dispute; you see our manner; we arein this place five persons of rank; we live perfectly retired; as suitedto a state of banishment; we have something rescued from the shipwreckof our fortunes, which keeps us from the mere necessity of hunting forour food; but the poor soldiers who are here, without that help, live inas much plenty as we. They go into the woods, and catch sables andfoxes; the labour of a