I once heard one of these pampered people — though we shouldn't really call it luxury when someone has forgotten how to be human — being carried from his bath and placed in his chair. He asked, "Am I sitting down yet?" Can you imagine? A man who doesn't know if he's sitting — do you think he knows if he's alive? If he can see? If he has any free time? I honestly can't tell what's worse: if he really didn't know, or if he was just pretending.
I have heard one of these luxurious folk—if indeed, we ought to give the name of luxury to unlearning the life and habits of a man—when he was carried in men's arms out of the bath and placed in his chair, say inquiringly, "Am I seated?" Do you suppose that such a man as this, who did not know when he was seated, could know whether he was alive, whether he could see, whether he was at leisure? I can hardly say whether I pity him more if he really did not know or if he pretended not to know this.