A sentence from "The life and adventures of Robinson Crusoe"
Here is a sentence from "The life and adventures of Robinson Crusoe".The sentence is "...i found at last that i wanted nothing but i could have made it, especially if i had had tools;however i made abundance of things, even without tools,..."
My question is how to understand "i wanted nothing"?

Question

A sentence from "The life and adventures of Robinson Crusoe"
Here is a sentence from "The life and adventures of Robinson Crusoe".The sentence is "...i found at last that i wanted nothing but i could have made it, especially if i had had tools;however i made abundance of things, even without tools,..."
My question is how to understand "i wanted nothing"?

Answer

The keyword is "but".  "...I wanted nothing but I could have made it..."  This means he found he was able to make whatever he needed. "Wanted" in this context has a closer meaning to "needed".