implied before, they are cooked, of course a la mode.

Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are
not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation
of mankind. With respect to luxuries and comforts, the wisest have
ever lived a more simple and meagre life than the poor. The ancient
philosophers, Chinese, Hindoo, Persian, and Greek, were a class than
which none has been poorer in outward riches, none so rich in inward. We
know not much about them. It is remarkable that we know so much of them
as we do. The same is true of the more modern reformers and benefactors
of their race. None can be an impartial or wise observer of human life
but from the vantage ground of what we should call voluntary poverty.
Of a life of luxury the fruit is luxury, whether in agriculture, or
commerce, or literature, or art. There are nowadays professors of
philosophy, but not philosophers. Yet it is admirable to profess because
it was once admirable to live. To be a philosopher is not merely to have
subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as
to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence,
magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not
only theoretically, but practically. The success of great scholars and
thinkers is commonly a courtier-like success, not kingly, not manly.
They make shift to live merely by conformity, practically as their
fathers did, and are in no sense the progenitors of a noble race of men.
But why do men degenerate ever? What makes families run out? What is the
nature of the luxury which enervates and destroys nations? Are we sure
that there is none of it in our own lives? The philosopher is in
advance of his age even in the outward form of his life. He is not fed,
sheltered, clothed, warmed, like his contemporaries. How can a man be a
philosopher and not maintain his vital heat by better methods than other
men?

When a man is warmed by the several modes which I have described, what
does he want next? Surely not more warmth of the same kind, as more and
richer food, larger and more splendid houses, finer and more abundant
clothing, more numerous, incessant, and hotter fires, and the like.
When he has obtained those things which are necessary to life, there is
another alternative than to obtain the superfluities; and that is, to
adventure on life now, his vacation from humbler toil having commenced.
The