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John Ruskin
A 19th-century French aristocrat, military man, and writer whose book Journey around My Bedroom Alain de Botton analyzes in his final essay. De Maistre did travel extensively for his military duties, but de Botton thinks that Journey around My Bedroom offers a promising alternative theory of travel: it is more about a traveling mind-set than a destination, and people can undertake satisfying voyages in the places they already call home. While “traveling” in his pajamas, de Maistre notes the beauty of his furniture before losing focus and daydreaming about his dog and crush; de Botton follows his lead by taking a walk around his neighborhood of Hammersmith with an eye to the area’s beauty rather than simply an immediate practical goal (usually, getting to the train station).
Xavier de Maistre Quotes in The Art of Travel
The The Art of Travel quotes below are all either spoken by Xavier de Maistre or refer to Xavier de Maistre. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 9 Quotes
“The sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room”—Pascal, Pensées, 136.
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Pascal’s prophetic words in the 17th century foreshadow Xavier de Maistre’s thrilling adventure around his bedroom more than a century later: de Maistre manages to find boundless enjoyment staying quietly in his room (although, in truth, de Botton never mentions that he was on house arrest during the whole endeavor, which might account for his decision to try out “room travel”). Nevertheless, Pascal suggests that something like curiosity, wanderlust, or the desire to experience the foreign is a driving cause behind human unhappiness; were people to appreciate what they have, or perhaps simply let go of their desire to discover Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserunt. Sint aperiam consequatur. Minima porro perferendis. Sit neque odit. Tenetur qui dignissimos. Qui et ut. Voluptate labore corporis. Hic tempore laborum. Nisi quia ea. Quia soluta itaque. Deleniti nisi earum. Ad tenetur laboriosam. Eum accusamu
In an autobiographical note written in 1801 in South America, Alexander von Humboldt specified his motive for traveling: “I was spurred on by an uncertain longing to be transported from a boring daily life to a marvellous world.” It was this very dichotomy, “boring daily life” pitted against “marvellous world,” that de Maistre had tried to redraw with greater subtlety.
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While de Botton’s book started with the dichotomy between (dreary, boring) familiar places and (thrilling, but ultimately disappointing) foreign ones, by its end he attempts to “redraw” this distinction using de Maistre’s insistence that even his bedroom can be a fulfilling travel destination. It seems there are three kinds of travellers for de Botton in this book. The first is bored and unreceptive at home, but expects so much from their travels abroad that they do not stop to notice what they actually encounter, but merely lament that the places they went did not match up to their mental images. Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserunt. Sint aperiam consequatur. Minima porro perferendis. Sit neque odit. Tenetur qui dignissimos. Qui et ut. Voluptate labore corporis. Hic tempore laborum
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Xavier de Maistre Character Timeline in The Art of Travel
The timeline below shows where the character Xavier de Maistre appears in The Art of Travel. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 9: On Habit
...years before Alexander von Humboldt set out for South America in 1799, the French writer Xavier de Maistre published a book about a Journey around My Bedroom. In 1798, he took a second...
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Introducing Journey around My Bedroom, de Maistre ’s brother Joseph wrote that Xavier did not mean to disparage the great travelers of...
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De Botton declares that de Maistre ’s trip “did not get very far.” De Maistre changes into his pyjamas and travels...
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But de Botton sees de Maistre ’s book as founded on the “profound and suggestive insight” that travel’s mind-set often matters...
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...they have discovered everything at home and become blind to everything new that happens there; de Maistre ’s goal was to “shake us from our passivity.” In his second book, he admires...
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Xavier de Maistre was “also a great traveller in the classic sense”—he fought military campaigns in Italy and...
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After reading de Maistre , Nietzsche remarked that “some people know how to manage their experiences” and learn to...
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