22
" This is one of the reasons why I believed then, and do believe still, that the shutting up houses thus by force, and restraining, or rather imprisoning, people in their own houses, as I said above, was of little or no service in the whole. Nay, I am of opinion it was rather hurtful, having forced those desperate people to wander abroad with the plague upon them, who would otherwise have died quietly in their beds. "
― Daniel Defoe , A Journal of the Plague Year
28
" Of All Diseases. Of the Plague. Aug. 8 to Aug. 15 5,319 3,880 Aug. 15 to Aug. 22 5,668 4,237 Aug. 22 to Aug. 29 7,496 6,102 Aug. 29 to Sept. 5 8,252 6,988 Sept. 5 to Sept. 12 7,690 6,544 Sept. 12 to Sept. 19 8,297 7,165 Sept. 19 to Sept. 30 6,400 5,533 Sept. 27 to Oct. 3 5,728 4,929 Oct. 3 to Oct. 10 5,068 4,227 59,918 49,605 So that the gross of the people were carried off in these two months; for, as the whole number which was brought in to die of the plague was but 68,590, here is 154 50,000 of them, within a trifle, in two months: I say 50,000, because as there wants 395 in the number above, so there wants two days of two months in the account of time. 155 "
― Daniel Defoe , A Journal of the Plague Year
32
" It was about the beginning of September, 1664, that I, among the rest of my neighbours, heard in ordinary discourse that the plague was returned again in Holland; for it had been very violent there, and particularly at Amsterdam and Rotterdam, in the year 1663, whither they say, it was brought, some said from Italy, others from the Levant, among some goods which were brought home by their Turkey fleet; others said it was brought from Candia; others from Cyprus. It mattered not from whence it came; but all agreed it was come into Holland again. "
― Daniel Defoe , A Journal of the Plague Year
33
" The art of writing an English prose at once scholarly, clear-cut, and vigorous, was well understood by Defoe's great contemporaries, Dryden, Swift, and Congreve; it does not seem to have occurred to Defoe that he could learn anything from their practice. He has his reward. "Robinson Crusoe" may continue to hold the child and the kitchen wench; but the "Essay on Dramatic Poesy," "The Battle of the Books," and "Love for Love," are for the men and women of culture "
― Daniel Defoe , A Journal of the Plague Year
36
" He knew as well the stories of generosity and courage and self-sacrifice: the clergy who encouraged and comforted all who came – including the outcast Catholics, Jews, and Dissenters; the doctors who tended the poor without fees; the officials working quickly to calm panic and stave off disaster; the watchmen, the deadcart drivers, the ‘buryers’ at the pits; the parents and children and servants and friends who encouraged, comforted, tended, worked, saved, and mourned. "
― Daniel Defoe , A Journal of the Plague Year
38
" while, and told them that London was the place by which they, that is, the townsmen of Epping, and all the country round them, subsisted; to whom they sold the produce of their lands, and out of whom they made the rents of their farms; and to be so cruel to the inhabitants of London, or to any of those by whom they gained so much, was very hard; and they would be loath to have it remembered hereafter, and have it told, how barbarous, how inhospitable, and how unkind they were to the people of London when they "
― Daniel Defoe , A Journal of the Plague Year