The process has been more than once analysed in that curious and convenient miniature example of it, the "Mrs.Veal" _supercherie_: but you may open the novels proper almost anywhere and discover it in full operation.

Like most great processes of art, this is an adoption and perfecting of habits usual with the most inartistic people--a turning to good account of the interminably circumstantial superfluities of the common gossip and newsmonger.

Very often Defoe actually does not go beyond this--just as in _The Shortest Way with the Dissenters_ he had simply reproduced the actual thoughts and wishes of those who disliked dissent.

But sometimes he got the better of this also, as in the elaborate building up of Robinson's surroundings and not a little in the other books.

And there the effect is not only verisimilar but wonderful in its verisimilitude.