took him, which I represent by being killed; this is all
literally true, and should I enter into discoveries many alive
can testify them. His other conduct and assistance to me also
have just references in all their parts to the helps I had from
that faithful savage in my real solitudes and disasters."

It may be added that there are strong grounds for believing Defoe to
have had about this time assistance in his literary work.

All this is very neatly worked out; but of course the really important
event in Crusoe's life is his great shipwreck and his long solitude
on the island. Now of what events in Defoe's life are these
symbolical?


The 'Silence.'

Well, in the very forefront of his _Serious Reflections_, and in
connection with his long confinement in the island, Defoe makes Crusoe
tell the following story:--

"I have heard of a man that, upon some extraordinary disgust
which he took at the unsuitable conversation of some of his
nearest relations, whose society he could not avoid, suddenly
resolved never to speak any more. He kept his resolution most
rigorously many years; not all the tears or entreaties of his
friends--no, not of his wife and children--could prevail with him
to break his silence. It seems it was their ill-behaviour to him,
at first, that was the occasion of it; for they treated him with
provoking language, which frequently put him into undecent