Brown, in the matter of abstemiousness, was somewhat idealized by Emerson and Thoreau, who met him when he was at the stage of his highest exaltation in the anti-slavery work and fresh from the fields and camps of Kansas. All they said of him was true, I have no doubt; yet it was hardly true of his whole life. Brown always lived very plainly; and his house and table at Springfield, at the time when money was most plentiful with him, were extremely simple. Yet he was normally fond of good viands. His household diet, though so simple, consisted largely of meat; and the praise that he sent home of the English mutton, when he was abroad, could only have come from a man who knew good mutton. Though absolutely temperate, he was not a total abstainer, and kept wine in his house for cases of illness. Redpath, who was not careful, says Brown "never drank spirits." Sanborn, who is careful, says he "seldom drank
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