About SkiSickness

But our depraved age does not deserve to enjoy so great a blessing as did those in which the knights-errant undertook and burdened their shoulders with the defense of kingdoms, the protection of damsels, the relief of children and orphans, the chastisement of the proud, and the rewarding of the humble. Most of our knights nowadays prefer to nestle in the damasks, brocades, and other rich silks they wear than in armored coats of mail. There are now no knights who sleep in the fields, exposed to the rigor of the heavens in full armor from head to foot. There is no one who snatches a nap, as they say, resting on his lance and with his feet on the stirrups as knights-errant did of old. There is no one now to sally forth from this wood and enter that mountain, and from there to go to a wasted and deserted shore of the sea, most often stormy and tempestuous and to find there on the beach a little boat without oars, sail, mast, or tackle, and with undaunted heart to fling himself in and entrust himself to the implacable waves of the deep sea, which at one moment toss him up to the sky, and at another engulf him in the abyss. Then, exposing his chest to the irresistible tempest, he finds himself, when he least expects it, more than nine thousand miles from the place where he embarked; and leaping on to a remote and unknown shore, he undergoes experiences worthy to be inscribed not on parchment, but on brass.