Explore "John Brent" by Theodore Winthrop on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
A man who does not love luxury is merely an incomplete man, or, if he prefers, an ignoramus. A man who cannot dispense with luxury, and who does not love hard fare, hard bed, hard travel, and all manner of robust, vigorous, tense work, is a weakling and a soft. Sybaris is a pretty town, rose-leaves are a delicate mattrass, Lydian measures are dulcet to soul and body: also, the wilderness is "no mean city"; hemlock or heather for couch, brocken for curtain, are not cruelty; prairie gales are a brave lullaby for adults.
Simple furniture and simple fare a campaigner needs for the plains, -- for chamber furniture, a pair of blankets; for kitchen furniture, a frying-pan and a coffee-pot; for table furniture, a tin mug and his bowie-knife: Sybaris adds a tin plate, a spoon, and even a fork. The list of provisions is as short, -- pork, flour, and coffee; that is all, unless Sybaris should indulge in a modicum of tea, a dose or two of sugar, and a vial of vinegar for holidays.