Mr. Aitken,[B] who has handled this hypothesis of Mr. Wright's, brings
several arguments against it, which, taken together, seem to me quite
conclusive. To begin with, several children were born to Defoe during
this period. He paid much attention to their education, and in 1713,
the penultimate year of this supposed silence, we find his sons
helping him in his work. Again, in 1703 Mrs. Defoe was interceding for
her husband's release from Newgate. Let me add that it was an age in
which personalities were freely used in public controversy; that Defoe
was continuously occupied with public controversy during these
twenty-eight years, and managed to make as many enemies as any man
within the four seas; and I think the silence of his adversaries upon
a matter which, if proved, would be discreditable in the extreme, is
the best of all evidence that Mr. Wright's hypothesis cannot be
sustained. Nor do I see how Mr. Wright makes it square with his own
conception of Defoe's character. "Of a forgiving temper himself," says
Mr. Wright on p. 86, "he (Defoe) was quite incapable of understanding
how another person could nourish resentment." This of a man whom the
writer asserts to have sulked in absolute silence with his wife and
family for twenty-eight years, two months, and nineteen days!


An inherent improbability.

At all events it will not square with _our_ conception of Defoe's
character. Those of us who have an almost unlimited admiration for
Defoe as a master of narrative, and next to no affection for him as a
man, might pass the heartlessness of such conduct. "At first sight,"
Mr. Wright admits, "it may appear monstrous that a man should for so
long a time abstain from speech with his own family." Monstrous,
indeed--but I am afraid we could have passed that. Mr. Wright, who has