From "Voyaging Southward from the Straight of Magellan" by Rockwell Kent, published in 1924:
"We, to whom the struggle for material comfort has become an obsession, have vauntingly named our pathway progress: our struggle may, however, be as well considered to have been a degenerate weakening, under the pressure of material discomforts, of the will toward leisure - a weakening that became a rout, a rout that we to save our pride name purpose - a purpose whose achievement in the denial of leisure we call civilization. And now at last, having become utterly and irretrievably involved in the disaster of materialism and having debauched the human soul with restlessness, we make luxury our glory, and abandon leisure to the childhood of the race."
Kent is quite the travel/(mis-)adventure writer. His block prints that accompany his writing are spectacular. There is something about "disaster of materialism" that strikes a chord today as it did for Kent in the 1920s. It's OK to relax.
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