James Joyce on "Crusoe"

Apparently in some lectures delivered in Trieste, Italy (1912) Joyce had this to say about DeFoe's Robinson Crusoe and how it reflects the English mindset:
. . . the manly independence, the unconscious cruelty, the persistence, the slow but effective intelligence, the sexual apathy, the practical and well-balanced religiosity, the calculating silence [of Robinson Crusoe].

And further:
The true symbol of the British conquest is Robinson Crusoe, cast away on a desert island, in his pocket a knife and a pipe, becomes an architect, a knife-grinder, an astronomer, a baker, a shipwright, a potter, a saddler, a farmer, a tailor, an umbrella-maker, and a clergyman. He is the true prototype of the British colonist, as Friday (the trusty savage who arrives on an unlucky day) is the symbol of the subject races. The whole Anglo-Saxon spirit is in Crusoe.
*

NB: These quotes are translations from Italian originals. Ergo alternate translations exist. See the following link for further (if scant) discussion on this topic.

http://www.ricorso.net/rx/az-data/authors/j/Joyce_JA/quots/quots2.htm#DDefoe

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