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‘OF ROBINSON CRUSOE. 293

 

head continually. I dreamed of it all night, and my imagination ran
upon it all day; it was uppermost in all my thoughts, and my fancy
worked so steadily and strongly upon it, that I talked of it in my sleep:
in short, nothing could remove it out of my mind; it even broke’ so
violently into all my discourses, that it made my conversation tiresome;
for I could talk of nothing else, all my discourse ran into it, even to
impertinence, and I saw it myself.

T have often heard persons of good judgment say, that all the stir
people make in the world about ghosts and apparitions is owing to the
strength of imagination, and the powerful operation of fancy in their
minds; that there is no such thing as a spirit appearing, or a ghost
walking, and the like; that people’s poring affectionately upon the
past conversation of their deceased friends so realizes it to them, that
they are capable of faneying, upon some extraordinary circumstances,
that they see them, talk to them, and are answered by them, when, in
truth, there is nothing but shadow and vapour in the thing; and they
really know nothing of the matter.

For my part, I know not to this hour whether there are any such
things as real apparitions, spectres, or walking of people after they are
dead, or whether there is any thing in the stories they tell us of that
kind, more than the product of vapours, sick minds, and wandering
fancies. But this I know, that my imagination worked up to such a
height, and brought me into such excess of vapours, or what else Imay
call it, that I actually supposed myself oftentimes upon the spot, at my
old castle behind the trees, saw my old Spaniard, Friday’s father, and
the reprobate sailors whom I left upon the island; nay, I fancied I
talked with them, and looked at them so steadily, though I was broad
awake, as at persons just before me; and this I did till I often frightened
myself with the images my fancy represented to me. One time inmy
sleep I had the villainy of the three pirate sailors so lively relatedto
me, by the first Spaniard and Friday’s father, that it was surprisigg :
‘they told me how they barbarously attempted to murder all the
Spaniards, and that they set fire to the provisions they had laid up, on
purpose to distress and starve them—things that I had never heard of,
and that were yet all of them true in fact; but it was so warm in my:
imagination, and so realized to me, that to the hour I saw them, I could:
not be persuaded but that it was or would be true; also how I resented
it when the Spaniard complained to me, and how I brought them to
justice, tried them before me, and ordered them all three to be hanged, °-
What there was really in this, shall be seen in its place; for iewaver
I came to form such things in my dream, and what secret converse of?’
spirits injected it, yet there was, I say, very much of it true. Town;