Walden, by Henry David Thoreau

Ha! I never knew that about his laundry. I imagine the attitude was different then. The idea of a grown man asking his mother and sisters to do his laundry nowadays seems downright pathetic.

But yes, I love Walden too. Often, I'll use parts of it as placeholder text. I feel like it's good to remind myself that my work has no point if I am not able to be cultivate tranquility and contentedness now, with what I have, and that it does no good to turn into the kind of person he describes: "The twelve labors of Hercules were trifling in comparison with those which my neighbors have undertaken; for they were only twelve, and had an end; but I could never see that these men slew or captured any monster or finished any labor. They have no friend Iolaus to burn with a hot iron the root of the hydra's head, but as soon as one head is crushed, two spring up."