twenty years or so, have given the German "eu" the sound of "oo" or "u."
Robinson's father therefore was called Crootsner until it was shaved
into Crootsno and thence smoothed to Crusoe.

But what was the Christian name of the elder Kreutznaer? Or of the boy's
mother? Or of his brothers or sisters? Or of the first ship captain
under whom he sailed; or any of them; or even of the ship he commanded,
and in which he was wrecked; or of the dog that he carried to the
island; or of the two cats; or of the first and all the other tame
goats; or of the inlet; or of Friday's father; or of the Spaniard he
saved; or of the ship captain; or of the ship that finally saved him?
Who knows? The book is a desert as far as nomenclature goes--the only
blossoms being his own name; that of Wells, a Brazilian neighbor; Xury,
the Moorish boy; Friday, Poll, the parrot; and Will Atkins.

* * * * *

You may retort that all this doesn't matter. That is very true--and be
hanged to you!--but those facts prove by every canon of literary art
that Robinson Crusoe is either a coldly calculated flight of consummate
genius or an accidental freak of hack literature. When De Foe wrote, it
was only a century after Drake and his companions in authorized
piracy had made the British privateer the scourge of the seas and had
demonstrated that naval supremacy meant the control of the world. The
seafaring life was one of peril, but it carried with it honor, glory and
envy. Forty years later Nelson was born to crown British navalry with
deathless Glory. Even the commonest sailor spoke his ship's name--if it
were a fine vessel--with the same affection that he spoke his wife's
and cursed a bad ship by its name as if to tag its vileness with
proverbiality.