ntroversy; 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
what I may call a purfled style, tells us that--

"To narrate the career of Daniel Defoe is to tell a tale of
wonder and daring, of high endeavour and marvellous success. To
dwell upon it is to take courage and to praise God for the
splendid possibilities of life.... Defoe is always the hero; his
career is as thick with events as a cornfield with corn; his
fortunes change as quickly and as completely as the shapes in a
kaleidoscope--he is up, he is down, he is courted, he is spurned;
it is shine, it is shower, it is _couleur de rose_, it is
Stygian night. Thirteen times he was rich and poor. Achilles was
not more audacious, Ulysses more subtle, AEneas more pious."

That is one way of putting it. Here is another way (as the cookery
books say):--"To narrate the career of Daniel Defoe is to tell a tale
of a hosier and pantile maker, who had a hooked nose and wrote tracts
indefatigably--he was up, he was down, he was in the Pillory, he was
at Tooting; it was _poule de soie_, it was leather and prunella; and
it was always tracts. AEneas was not so pious a member of the Butchers'
Company; and there are a few milestones on the D