Large Fierce Mammal

“The pleasure you find in traveling around your room is safe from the restless jealousy of men; it is independent of the fickleness of fortune. After all, is there any person so unhappy, so abandoned, that he doesn’t have a little den into which he can withdraw and hide away from everyone? Nothing more elaborate is needed for the journey.” ~ Voyage Autour de ma Chambre (A Journey Round my Room), Xavier de Maistre, 1790

The passage above came out of 42 days of house arrest laid upon 27 year old Monsieur le Comte Xavier de Maistre (1763 – 1852) for the offense of duelling. Bound only by his Honour as a Gentleman, the young officer dutifully served his sentence and remained sequestered to his room for the duration, sans complaint.

Five days ago, in How to Spend 42 Days Stuck in Your Room, Will Schwalbe on Xavier de Maistre’s 1790 Study of Isolation, Will Schwalbe wrote:

“With nothing else to do, he wrote a guidebook to his room, visiting over the course of those weeks various bits of furniture, paintings, his bookshelf, letters he’d kept, and his own memory of a charming and slightly rakish life—albeit one studded with war and loss as well ….

“His journey costs him nothing. He exclaims that this kind of travel will be ‘lauded and feted’ by those who have modest amounts of wealth, but will be even more popular among the rich. He tells the reader why he thinks this is so: precisely because it doesn’t cost anything. The rich are rich because they like to save money. He also points out that room travel is a great way for the sick to journey, just as it is for those who are scared of robbers, precipices, and quagmires.”

De Maistre begins his narrative thus:

“My room is situated on the 45th degree of latitude, according to the measurement of Father Beccaria; it stretches from east to west; it forms a long rectangle, 36 paces in circumference, if you hug the wall. My journey will, however, measure much more than this, as I will be crossing it frequently lengthwise, or else diagonally, without any rule or method. I will even follow a zigzag path, and I will trace out every possible geometrical trajectory if need be. I don’t like people who have their itineraries and ideas so clearly sorted out that they say, ‘Today I’ll make three visits, I’ll write four letters, and I’ll finish that book I started.’ My soul is so open to every kind of idea, taste and sentiment; it so avidly receives everything that presents itself! . . .  And why would it turn down the pleasures that are scattered along life’s difficult path?”

The antiquity of our ripping yarn du jour puts it in the public domain, and therefore accessible to anyone who wishes to discover, “The pleasure you find in traveling around your room.” So seek it out here in its 1871 English translation by Henry Atwell. Even as I realize that I preach today’s sermon before the choir, a part of me hopes against hope that at least one among that throng lacking of Honour, let alone the Courage to defend it, may accidentally stumble upon it and be saved.