Now, Robinson Crusoe was once in a very bad box
indeed, and to comfort himself as well as he could, and
to set the good against the evil, that he might have
something to distinguish his case from worse, he stated
impartially, like debtor and creditor, the comforts and
miseries, thus:--
EVIL. GOOD.
I am cast upon a horrible But I am alive, and not
desolate island, void of all drowned as all my hope of
recovery. ship's company were.
I am singled out and separated, But I am singled out,
as it were, from all the world, to too, from the ship's crew
be miserable. to be spared from death.
And so the debtor and creditor account goes on.
Julia Hackmatack read this aloud to them--the whole
of it--and they agreed, as Robinson says, not so much for
their posterity as to keep their thoughts from daily
poring on their trials, that for each family they would
make such a balance. What might not come of it? Perhaps
a partial nay, perhaps a perfect cure!
So they determined that on the instant they would go
to work, and two in the smoking-room, two in the dining-
room, two in George's study, and two in the parlor, they
should in the next halfhour make up their lists of good
and evil. Here are the results:--
FREDERIC AND MARY INGHAM.
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