ing for? Does life appear miserable, that gives thee opportunities of earning such a reward? Is death to be feared, that will convey thee to so happy an existence? Think not man was made in vain, who has such an eternity reserved for him.' I gazed with inexpressible pleasure on these happy islands. At length, said I, 'Show me now, I beseech thee, the secrets that lie hid under those dark clouds which cover the ocean on the other side of the rock of adamant.' The genius making me no answer, I turned me about to address myself to him a second time, but I found that he had left me; I then turned again to the vision which I had been so long contemplating; but instead of the rolling tide, the arched bridge, and the happy islands, I saw nothing but the long hollow valley of Bagdat, with oxen, sheep, and camels, grazing upon the sides of it."

3. THE IMPORTANCE OF A GOOD EDUCATION.

(FROM THE SAME WORK.)

I CONSIDER a human soul without education, like marble in the quarry; which shows none of its inherent beauties, until the skill of the polisher fetches out the colours, makes the surface shine, and discovers (reveals) every ornamental cloud, spot, and vein, that runs through the body of it. Education, after the same manner, when it works upon a noble mind, draws out to view every latent virtue and perfection, which, without such helps, are never able to make their appearance.

If my reader will give me leave to change the allusion so soon upon him, I shall make use of the same instance to illustrate the force of education, which Aristotle has brought to explain his doctrine of substantial forms, when he tells us, that a statue lies hid in a block of marble; and that the art of the statuary only clears away the superfluous matter, and removes the rubbish. The figure is in the stone, and the sculptor' only finds it. What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul. The philosopher, the saint, or the hero, the wise, the good, or the great man, very often lie (lies) hid and

(1) Statuary. This word is now entirely and properly superseded by "sculptor." Both Locke and Dryden speak of "painters and statuaries." A statuary in our day is not an artist, but a mechanical copyist, or dealer in statues. Addison, it will be seen, uses both words in exactly the same sense.

concealed in a plebeian,' which a proper education might have disinterred, and have brought to light. I am therefore much delighted with reading the accounts of savage nations; and with contemplating those virtues which are wild and uncultivated to see courage exerting itself in fierceness, resolution in obstinacy, wisdom in cunning, patience in sullenness and despair.

2

Men's passions operate variously, and appear in different kinds of actions, according as they are more or less rectified and swayed by reason. When one hears of negroes, who, upon the death of their masters, or upon changing their service, hang themselves upon the next tree, as it sometimes happens in our American plantations, who can forbear admiring their fidelity, though it expresses itself in so dreadful a manner? What might not that savage greatness of soul, which appears in these poor wretches on many occasions, be raised to, were it rightly cultivated? And what colour of excuse can there be, for the contempt with which we treat this part of our species; that we should not put them upon the common foot of humanity ?3 that we should only set an insignificant fine upon the man who murders them; nay, that we should, as much as in us lies, cut them off from the prospects of happiness in another world, as well as in this; and deny them that which we look upon as the proper means for attaining it?

It is therefore an unspeakable blessing, to be born in those parts of the world where wisdom and knowledge flourish; though it must be confessed there are even in these parts, several poor uninstructed persons, who are but little above the inhabitants of those nations of which I have been here speaking; as those who have had the advantage of a more liberal education, rise above one another by several different degrees of perfection. For to return to our statue in the block

(1) Lies hid in a plebeian, &c. A parallel turn of thought is seen in Gray's "Elegy

"But knowledge to their eyes (the peasants' eyes) her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll."

See "Studies in English Poetry," p. 62.

(2) I.e. the present United States of America. (3) Addison is here anticipating the public opinion of the age which followed. When he wrote the above, there were few of the "wits" of the time who sympathised with him.

(4) Several. See note 2, p. 149. This word, as used by Addison, hardly expresses what we mean by it now. It appears to be in a sort of transition state between the early and modern use, and nearly corresponds to "some."

of marble, we see it sometimes only begun to be chipped, sometimes rough-hewn, and but just sketched into a human figure: sometimes we see the man appearing distinctly in all his limbs and features; sometimes, we find the figure wrought up to great elegancy; but seldom meet with any to which the hand of a Phidias or a Praxiteles1 could not give several nice touches and finishings.

DANIEL DEFOE.2

THE FOOTPRINT IN THE SAND.

(FROM "THE LIFE, AND STRANGE, SURPRISING ADVENTURES OF ROBINSON CRUSOE," PUBLISHED IN 1719.)

It happened one day about noon, going towards my boat, I was exceedingly surprised with the print of a man's naked foot on the shore, which was very plain to be seen in the sand. I stood like one thunderstruck, or as if I had seen an apparition. I listened, I looked round me, I could hear nothing, nor see anything; I went up to a rising ground to look further; I went up the shore and down the shore; but it was all one: I could see no other impression but that one. I went to it again, to see if there were any more, and to observe if it might not be my fancy; but there was no room for that, for there was exactly the very print of a foot, toes, heel, and every part of a foot. How it came thither, I knew not, nor could in the least imagine.

(1) The famous Athenian sculptors, specimens of whose exquisite handiwork may still be seen in the British Museum.

(2) "Defoe is more natural than Swift, and his style, though inferior in directness and energy, is more copious. He is strictly an original writer, with strong, clear conceptions ever rising up in his mind, which he was able to embody in language equally perspicuous and forcible."-Robert Chambers, Cyclopædia of English Literature, 1. 618.

"His writing is always full of idiomatic nerve, and in a high degree graphic and expressive; and even its occasional slovenliness, whether the result of carelessness or design, aids the illusion by which the fiction is made to read so like a matter of fact."-Craik, English Literature, ii. 272.

It is remarkable that Defoe did not commence writing fiction until he was fiftyeight years of age. He had previously written on politics. The above extract is made from the original edition.

But after innumerable fluttering thoughts, like a man perfectly confused and out of myself, I came home to my fortification, not feeling, as we say, the ground I went on, but terrified to the last degree, looking behind me at every two or three steps, mistaking every bush and tree, and fancying every stump at a distance to be a man; nor is it possible to describe how many various shapes affrighted imagination represented things to me in; how many wild ideas were found every moment in my fancy, and what strange, unaccountable whimsies came into my thoughts by the way. When I came to my castle-for so, I think, I called it ever after this-I fled into it like one pursued; whether I went over by the ladder, as first contrived, or went in at the hole in the rock, which I called a door, I cannot remember; no, nor could I remember the next morning; for never frighted hare fled to cover, or fox to earth, with more terror of mind than I to this retreat.

I slept none that night; the farther I was from the occasion of my fright, the greater my apprehensions were, which is something contrary to the nature of such things, and especially to the usual practice of all creatures in fear. But I was so embarrassed with my own frightful1 ideas of the thing, that I formed nothing but dismal imaginations2 to myself, even though I was now a great way off it. Sometimes I fancied it must be the devil, and reason joined in with me upon this supposition; for how should any other thing in human shape come into the place? Where was the vessel that brought them? What marks there of any other footsteps? and how was it possible a man should come there? But then to think that Satan should take human shape upon him in such a place where there could be no manner of occasion for it, but to leave the print of his foot behind him, and that even for no purpose too, for he could not be sure I should see it; this was an amusement3 the other way. I considered that the devil might have found out abundance of other ways to have terrified me than this of the

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was

(1) Frightful, full of fright, not inspiring fright, as is the present usage. Drayton speaks of "the wild and frightful herds.”

(2) Dismal imaginations, gloomy pictures. Imaginations is here used not as the action or faculty of the mind, but as the result of its action-the images themselves.

(3) Amusement. The notion (as remarked by Trench) of diversion or entertainment, now conveyed by this word, did not formerly belong to it. Fuller speaks of being "amused with grief, fear, and fright," which is exactly Robinson Crusoe's "amusement" above. To "amuse" seems to have meant to cause the mind to muse, to occupy, or engage it.

single print of a foot; that as I lived quite at the other side of the island he would never have been so simple' [as] to leave a mark in a place where it was ten thousand to one whether I should ever see it or not, and in the sand too, which the first surge of the sea upon a high wind would have defaced entirely; -all this seemed inconsistent with the thing itself, and with all the notions we usually entertain of the "subtilty" of the devil. Abundance of such things as these assisted to argue me out of all apprehensions of its being the devil; and I presently concluded then that it must be some more dangerous creature-viz., that it must be some of the savages of the mainland over against me, who had wandered out to sea in their canoes, and either driven by the currents, or by contrary winds, had made the island, and had been on shore, but were gone away again to sea, as loth, perhaps, to have stayed in this desolate island, as I would (should) have been to have had them. While these reflections were 66 rowling" upon my mind, I was very thankful in my thoughts, that I was so happy as not to be thereabouts at that time, or that they did not see my boat, by which they Iwould have concluded that some inhabitants had been in the place, and perhaps have searched further for me. Then terrible thoughts racked my imagination, about their having found my boat, and that there were people here; and that if so, I should certainly have them come again in greater numbers and devour me; that if it should happen so that they should not find me, yet they would find my enclosure, destroy all my corn, carry away all my flock of tame goats, and I should perish at last for

mere want.

Thus my fear banished all my religious hope. All that former confidence in God which was founded on such wonderful experience as I had had of His goodness now vanished, as if He that had fed me by miracle hitherto, could not preserve by His power the provision which He had made for me by His goodness.

In the middle of these cogitations, apprehensions, and reflections, it came into my thoughts one day, that all this might be a mere chimera of my own, and that this foot might be the print of my own foot when I came on shore from my boat. This cheered me up a little too, and I began to persuade myself it was all a delusion, that it was nothing else but my own

(1) Simple, silly (fr. Lat. simplex, wh. perhaps fr. sim, one, and plecto, to fold), originally guileless, innocent, good, has suffered some degradation of meaning, still retaining, however, the primitive sense.