the sinner were not after all so very
different from the motives of the saint.

The aims in life of Defoe's thieves and pirates are at bottom very
little different from the ambition which he undertakes to direct in the
_Complete English Tradesman_, and their maxims of conduct have much in
common with this ideal. Self-interest is on the look-out, and
Self-reliance at the helm.

"A tradesman behind his counter must have no flesh and
blood about him, no passions, no resentment; he must never
be angry--no, not so much as seem to be so, if a customer
tumbles him five hundred pounds' worth of goods, and scarce
bids money for anything; nay, though they really come to
his shop with no intent to buy, as many do, only to see what
is to be sold, and though he knows they cannot be better
pleased than they are at some other shop where they intend
to buy, 'tis all one; the tradesman must take it, he must place
it to the account of his calling, that 'tis his business to be ill-used,
and resent nothing; and so must answer as obligingly
to those who give him an hour or two's trouble, and buy
nothing, as he does to those who, in half the time, lay out
ten or twenty pounds. The case is plain; and if some do
give him trouble, and do not buy, others make amends and
do buy; and as for the trouble, 'tis the business of the shop."

All Defoe's heroes and heroines are animated by this practical spirit,
this thorough-going subordination of means to ends. When they have an
end in view, the plunder of a house, the capture of a ship, the
ensnaring of a dupe, they allow neither passion, nor resentment, nor
sentiment in any shape or form to stand in their way. Every other
consideration is put on one side when the business of the shop has to
be attended to. They are all tradesmen who have strayed into unlawful
courses. They have nothing about them of the heroism of sin; their
crimes are not the result of ungovernable passion, or even of antipathy
to conventional restraints; circumstances and not any law-defying bias
of disposition have made them criminals. How is it that the novelist
contrives to make them so interesting? Is it because we are a nation of
shopkeepers, and enjoy following lines of business which are a little
out of our ordinary routine? Or is it simply that he makes us enjoy
their courage and cleverness without thinking of the purposes with which
these qualities are displayed? Defoe t