But what was the Christian name of the elder Kreutznaer? Or of the boy's mother? Or of his brothers or sisters? Or of the first ship captain under 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 the island; or of the two cats; or of the first and all the other tame goats; or of the inlet; or of Friday's father; or of the Spaniard he saved; 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 only blossoms 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 be hanged to you!--but those facts prove by every canon of literary art that Robinson Crusoe is either a coldly calculated flight of consummate genius or an accidental freak of hack literature. When De Foe wrote, it was only a century after Drake and his companions in authorized piracy had made the British privateer the scourge of the seas and had demonstrated that naval supremacy meant the control of the world. The seafaring life was one of peril, but it carried with it honor, glory and envy. Forty years later Nelson was born to crown British navalry with deathless Glory. Even the commonest sailor spoke his ship's name--if it were a fine vessel--with the same affection that he spoke his wife's and cursed a bad ship by its name as if to tag its vileness with proverbiality. When De Foe wrote Alexander Selkirk, able seaman, was alive end had told his story of shipwreck to Sir Richard Steele, editor of the English Gentleman and of the Tattler, who wrote it up well--but not half as well as any one of ten thousand newspaper men of today could do under similar circumstances.