"Children's Books - Defoe, Daniel - Robinson Crusoe" - читать интересную книгу автора (Children's Books)

you will meet with nothing but disasters and disappointments, till
your father's words are fulfilled upon you."
We parted soon after; for I made him little answer, and I saw him no
more; which way he went, I know not. As for me, having some money in
my pocket, I travelled to London by land; and there, as well as on the
road, had many struggles with myself what course of life I should
take, and whether I should go home or go to sea.
As to going home, shame opposed the best motions that offered to
my thoughts; and it immediately occurred to me how I should be laughed
at among the neighbors, and should be ashamed to see, not my father
and mother only but even everybody else; from whence I have since
often observed how incongruous and irrational the common temper of
mankind is, especially of youth, to the reason which ought to guide
them in such cases, viz., that they are not ashamed to sin, and yet
are ashamed to repent; not ashamed of the action for which they
ought justly to be esteemed fools, but are ashamed of the returning,
which only can make them be esteemed wise men.
In this state of life, however, I remained some time, uncertain what
measures to take, and what course of life to lead. An irresistible
reluctance continued to going home; and as I stayed a while, the
remembrance of the distress I had been in wore off, and as that
abated, the little motion I had in my desires to a return wore off
with it, till at last I quite laid aside the thoughts of it, and
looked out for a voyage.
That evil influence which carried me first away from my father's
house, that hurried me into the wild and indigested notion of
raising my fortune, and that impressed those conceits so forcibly upon
me as to make me deaf to all good advice, and to the entreaties and
even command of my father - I say, the same influence, whatever it
was, presented the most unfortunate of all enterprises to my view; and
I went on board a vessel bound to the coast of Africa, or as our
sailors vulgarly call it, a voyage to Guinea.
It was my great misfortune that in all these adventures I did not
ship myself as a sailor, whereby, though I might indeed have worked
a little harder than ordinary, yet at the same time I had learned
the duty and office of a foremast man, and in time might have
qualified myself for a mate or lieutenant, if not for a master. But as
it was always my fate to choose for the worse, so I did here; for
having money in my pocket, and good clothes upon my back, I would
always go on board in the habit of a gentleman; and so I neither had
any business in the ship, or learned to do any.
It was my lot first of all to fall into pretty good company in
London, which does not always happen to such loose and misguided young
fellows as I then was; the devil generally not omitting to lay some
snare for them very early; but it was not so with me. I first fell
acquainted with the master of a ship who had been on the coast of
Guinea, and who, having had very good success there, was resolved to
go again; and who, taking a fancy to my conversation, which was not at
all disagreeable at that time, hearing me say I had a mind to see
the world, told me if I would go the voyage with him I should be at no