“I had slept well in the night, and was now no more sea-sick but very cheerful, looking with wonder upon the sea that was so rough and terrible the day before, and could be so calm and so pleasant in so little time after.
And now, least my good resolutions should continue, my companion, who had indeed entic’d me away, comes to me. ‘Well, Bob,’ says he, clapping me on the shoulder, ‘how do you do after it? I warrant you were frighted, wa’n’t you, last night, when it blew but a cap full of wind.’ ‘A cap full d’you call it?’ said I, ‘’twas a terrible storm.’ ‘Do you call that a storm? Why, it was nothing at all; give us a good ship and sea room and we think nothing of such a squall. But you’re but a fresh water sailor, Bob; come, let us make a bowl of punch and we’ll forget all that.’”
(While commonly thought to be based on the true story of Scottish castaway Alexander Selkirk, more recent scholarship indicates multiple sources for Defoe’s famous novel, claimed to be the world’s most translated book after the Bible.)
Daniel Defoe – Robinson Crusoe, 1719
