not." How empty a satisfaction is this "purchased at so great an expense
as that of conscience, and of a dishonour done to truth!" And the crime
is so entirely objectless. A man who tells a lie, properly so called,
has some hope of reward by it. But to lie for sport is to play at
shuttlecock with your soul, and load your conscience for the mere sake
of being a fool. "With what temper should I speak of those people? What
words can express the meanness and baseness of the mind that can do
this?" In making this protest against frivolous story-telling, the
humour of which must have been greatly enjoyed by his journalistic
colleagues, Defoe anticipated that his readers would ask why, if he so
disapproved of the supplying a story by invention, he had written
_Robinson Crusoe_. His answer was that _Robinson Crusoe_ was an
allegory, and that the telling or writing a parable or an allusive
allegorical history is quite a different case. "I, Robinson Crusoe, do
affirm that the story, though allegorical, is also historical, and that
it is the beautiful representation of a life of unexampled misfortunes,
and of a variety not to be met with in this world." This life was his
own. He explains at some length the particulars of the allegory:--

"Thus the fright and fancies which succeeded the story
of the print of a man's foot, and surprise of the old goat, and
the thing rolling on my bed, and my jumping up in a fright,
are all histories and real stories; as are likewise the dream
of being taken by messengers, being arrested by officers, the
manner of being driven on shore by the surge of the sea, the
ship on fire, the description of starving, the story of my man
Friday, and many more most natural passages observed here,
and on which any religious reflections are made, are all historical
and true in fact. It is most real that I had a parrot,
and taught it to call me by my name, such a servant a savage