As I was saying, when I glanced at it, it read seven minutes to six. I
remember the time very well, for just then the factory whistle blew and I
remember saying to myself: "It's seven minutes slow today." You see, it's
old and we don't keep it oiled, and so it's always losing time. Hardly a
day passes but I set it up--sometimes twice a day, as for the matter of
that--and I usually go by the factory whistle too, though now and then I
go by Dwight's gold watch. Well, anyhow, that tells me what time it was.
I'm certain I can't be wrong.
2. Study, on the other hand, The Castaway (Appendix 5) for its judicious
use of details. Defoe in his stories is a supreme master of verisimilitude
(likeness to truth). As we read him, we cannot help believing that these
things actually happened. More than in anything else the secret of his
lifelikeness lies in his constant faithfulness to reality. He puts in the
little mishaps that would have befallen a man so situated, the things he
would have done, the difficulties he might have avoided had he exercised
forethought. Though Defoe had little insight into the complexities of
man's inner life, he has not been surpassed in his accumulations of
naturalistic outer details.
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