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In his inner life -- his domestic environments -- Theodore Trist was not a comfortable man. There are some who, possessing luxurious ways, seem to pass through the trials and petty woes of life with more comfort than others. This is, moreover, accomplished without the expenditure of greater means. Many are wanting in this power of alleviating crude environments, which, however, goes usually with a very small capability of adapting one's self to circumstances.
Trist was essentially an adaptable fellow. He never seemed to notice that the sheet was shorter than the blanket, for instance. Nor did the fact affect his equanimity that he had to drink his tea without milk or sugar. It was not that he failed to perceive these things. His calling and his training alike made it necessary that he should. Nor was it that his mind was above such trifles; nothing was so small, so trivial, as to be beneath his attention. The fact was, that his mental and physical discipline was such that in recording hardship he had come to look upon it as an excuse for so much printed matter, a thing to write about, but of which it was useless to complain. He was an observer, not an autobiographer; he recorded the hardships of others, and spoke little of his own. On the Danube, and later in Plevna, they called him the 'philosopher.'