Hours in a Library, Volume I | Page 9

you in
time. But a villain in De Foe is extremely like a virtuous person, only
that, so to speak, he has unluckily backed the losing side. Thus, for
example, Colonel Jack is a thief from his youth up; Moll Flanders is a
thief, and worse; Roxana is a highly immoral lady, and is under some
suspicion of a most detestable murder; and Captain Singleton is a pirate
of the genuine buccaneering school. Yet we should really doubt, but for
their own confessions, whether they have villainy enough amongst
them to furnish an average pickpocket. Roxana occasionally talks about
a hell within, and even has unpleasant dreams concerning 'apparitions
of devils and monsters, of falling into gulphs, and from off high and
steep precipices.' She has, moreover, excellent reasons for her
discomfort. Still, in spite of a very erroneous course of practice, her
moral tone is all that can be desired. She discourses about the
importance of keeping to the paths of virtue with the most exemplary
punctuality, though she does not find them convenient for her own
personal use. Colonel Jack is a young Arab of the streets--as it is
fashionable to call them now-a-days--sleeping in the ashes of a
glasshouse by night, and consorting with thieves by day. Still the
exemplary nature of his sentiments would go far to establish Lord
Palmerston's rather heterodox theory of the innate goodness of man. He
talks like a book from his earliest infancy. He once forgets himself so

far as to rob a couple of poor women on the highway instead of picking
rich men's pockets; but his conscience pricks him so much that he
cannot rest till he has restored the money. Captain Singleton is a still
more striking case: he is a pirate by trade, but with a strong
resemblance to the ordinary British merchant in his habits of thought.
He ultimately retires from a business in which the risks are too great for
his taste, marries, and settles down quietly on his savings. There is a
certain Quaker who joins his ship, really as a volunteer, but under a
show of compulsion, in order to avoid the possible inconveniences of a
capture. The Quaker always advises him in his difficulties in such a
way as to avoid responsibility. When they are in action with a
Portuguese man-of-war, for example, the Quaker sees a chance of
boarding, and, coming up to Singleton, says very calmly, 'Friend, what
dost thou mean? why dost thou not visit thy neighbour in the ship, the
door being open for thee?' This ingenious gentleman always preserves
as much humanity as is compatible with his peculiar position, and even
prevents certain negroes from being tortured into confession, on the
unanswerable ground that, as neither party understands a word of the
other's language, the confession will not be to much purpose. 'It is no
compliment to my moderation,' says Singleton, 'to say, I was convinced
by these reasons; and yet we had all much ado to keep our second
lieutenant from murdering some of them to make them tell.'
Now, this humane pirate takes up pretty much the position which De
Foe's villains generally occupy in good earnest. They do very
objectionable things; but they always speak like steady, respectable
Englishmen, with an eye to the main chance. It is true that there is
nothing more difficult than to make a villain tell his own story naturally;
in a way, that is, so as to show at once the badness of the motive and
the excuse by which the actor reconciles it to his own mind. De Foe is
entirely deficient in this capacity of appreciating a character different
from his own. His actors are merely so many repetitions of himself
placed under different circumstances and committing crimes in the way
of business, as De Foe might himself have carried out a commercial
transaction. From the outside they are perfect; they are evidently copied
from the life; and Captain Singleton is himself a repetition of the
celebrated Captain Kidd, who indeed is mentioned in the novel. But of

the state of mind which leads a man to be a pirate, and of the effects
which it produces upon his morals, De Foe has either no notion, or is,
at least, totally incapable of giving us a representation. All which goes
by the name of psychological analysis in modern fiction is totally alien
to his art. He could, as we have said, show such dramatic power as may
be implied in transporting himself to a different position, and looking at
matters even from his adversary's point of view; but of the further
power of appreciating his adversary's character he shows not the
slightest trace. He looks at his actors from the outside, and gives us
with wonderful minuteness all