"For sudden joys, like griefs, confound at first."
I walked about the shore, lifting up my hands, and my whole being, as I may say, wrapped up in the contemplation of my deliverance; making a thousand gestures and motions which I cannot describe; reflecting upon my comrades that were drowned, and that there should not be one soul saved but myself; for as for them, I never saw them afterwards, or any sign of them, except three of the hats, one cap, and two shoes that were not fellows.
DEFOE.
Facsimile, somewhat reduced, of the frontispiece to the first edition of
Robinson Crusoe.
1719.
The full title reads:—The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson
Crusoe, of York, Mariner: Who lived eight-and-twenty years all alone,
on an uninhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth
of the Great River of Oroonoque: Having been cast on
Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the others perished
but himself. With An Account how he
was at last as strangely deliver'd by
Pyrates. Written by Himself.
I cast my eyes to the stranded vessel—when the breach and froth of the sea being so big I could hardly see it, it lay so far off—and considered, Lord! how was it possible I could get on shore?