OF ROBINSON CRUSOE. 297.

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into the old affair, my head was quite turned with the whimsies of
foreign adventures; and all the pleasing innocent amusements of my
farm and my garden, my cattle and my family, which before entirely.
possessed me, were nothing to me, had no relish, and were like music to
one that has no ear, or food to one that has no taste: in a word, I
resolved to leave off housekeeping, let my farm, and return to London;
and in a few months after I did so.

When I came to London, I was still as uneasy as before: I had no
relish to the place, no employment in it, nothing to do but to saunter
about like an idle person, of whom it may be said, he is perfectly
useless in God’s creation, and it is not onv farthing matter to the rest
of his kind whether he be dead or alive. This also was the thing which,
of all circumstances of life, was the most my aversion, who had been all
my days used to an active life; and I would often say to myself, “ A
state of idleness is the very dregs of life :’’ and indeed I thought I was
much more suitably employed, when I was twenty-six days making me
a deal board.

It was now the beginning of the year 1693, when my nephew, whom, as
I observed before, I had brought up to the sea, and had made him com-
mander of a ship, was come home from a short voyage to Bilboa, being
the first he had made. He came to me, and told me, that some mer-
chants of his acquaintance had been proposing to him to go a voyage
for them to the East Indies and to China, as private traders: ‘“ And
now, uncle,” says he, “if you will go to sea with me, I'll engage to
land you upon your old habitation in the island, for we are to touch at
the Brazils.”’

Nothing can be a greater demonstration of a future state, and of the
existence of an invisible world, than the concurrence of second causes
with the ideas of things which we form in our minds, perfectly reserved
and not communicated to any in the world.

My nephew knew nothing how far my distemper of wandering was

. returned upon me, and I knew nothing of what he had in his thoughts
to say, when that very morning, before he came to me, I had, in a great
deal of confusion of thought, and revolving every part of my circum-
stances in my mind, come to this resolution, namely, that I would go
to Lisbon and consult with my old sea-captain; and so, if it was rational
and practicable, I would go and see the island again, and see what was
become of my people there. I had pleased myself also with the
thoughts of peopling the place, and carrying inhabitants from hence,
getting a patent for the possession, and I know not what; when, in the
middle of all this, in comes my nephew, as I have said, with his project

of carrying me thither, in his way to-the East Indies. a