Robinson Crusoe (Dover Thrift Editions: Classic Novels)

but I would be satisfied with nothing but going to sea, and my inclination to this led me so strongly against the will, nay, the commands of my father, and against all the entreaties and perswasions of my mother and other friends, that there seem’d to be something fatal in that propension of nature tending directly to the life of misery which was t

But I that was born to be my own destroyer, could no more resist the offer than I could restrain my first rambling designs,

then I call’d a council, that is to say, in my thoughts,

not embarass’d with the labours of the hands or of the head,

I consulted several things in my situation which I found would be proper for me:

These wise and sober thoughts continued all the while the storm continued, and indeed some time after;

But I was hurried on, and obey’d blindly the dictates of my fancy rather than my reason;

that they are not asham’d to sin, and yet are asham’d to repent; not asham’d of the action for which they ought justly to be esteemed fools, but are asham’d of the returning, which only can make them be esteem’d wise men.

But my ill fate push’d me on now with an obstinacy that nothing could resist; and tho’ I had several times loud calls from my reason and my more composed judgment to go home, yet I had no power to do it. I know not what to call this, nor will I urge that it is a secret overruling decree that hurries us on to be the instruments of our own destructio