The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I
General
The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I
Literature -- Collections
No part of his character looked wickeder, as well as meaner, than that
he, all the while that he was professing to be of the Church of
England, expressing both zeal and affection to it, was yet secretly
reconciled to the Church of Rome; thus mocking God, and deceiving the
world with so gross a prevarication. And his not having the honesty or
courage to own it at the last; his not shewing any sign of the least
remorse for his ill-led life, or any tenderness either for his
subjects in general, or for the queen and his servants; and his
recommending only his mistresses and their children to his brother's
care, would have been a strange conclusion to any other's life, but
was well enough suited to all the other parts of his.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 105: From the "History of Our Own Times."]
[Footnote 106: The profligate earl, of whom the best-known anecdote is
that he once pinned to the door of the King's chamber the following
quatrain:
"Here lies our Sovereign Lord the King,
Whose word no man relies on:
He never said a foolish thing,
And never did a wise one."
It is recorded of the King that, when he saw these lines he remarked
that they were quite true, inasmuch as his words were his own and his
acts were those of his ministers.]
DANIEL DEFOE
Born in 1661, died in 1731; his father a butcher in London;
served in the army in 1688; traveled on the Continent; wrote
pamphlets in favor of William III; arrested and placed in
the pillory for an attack on Dissenters in 1703; engaged in
political intrigues and wrote many articles and pamphlets;
"Robinson Crusoe" published in 1719, "Moll Flanders" in
1722, "The Journal of the Plague" in 1722.
I
THE SHIPWRECK OF CRUSOE[107]
Nothing can describe the confusion of thought which I felt when I sunk
into the water; for tho I swam very well, yet I could not deliver
myself from the waves so as to draw my breath; till that wave having
driven me or rather carried me a vast way on toward the shore, and
having spent itself, went back, and left me upon the land almost dry,
but half dead with the water I took in. I had so much presence of mind
as well as breath left, that seeing myself nearer the mainland than I
expected, I got upon my feet, and endeavored to make on toward the
land as I could, before another wave should return and take me up
again; but I soon found it was impossible to avoid it; for I saw the
sea coming after me as high as a great hill, and as furious as an
enemy which I had no means or strength to contend with: my business
was to hold my breath, and raise myself upon the water, if I could;
and so by swimming to preserve my breathing, and pilot myself toward
the shore if possible; my greatest concern now being that the wave, as
it would carry me a great way toward the shore when it came on, might
not carry me back again with it when it gave back toward the sea.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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