A Journey Round My RoomIn 1790, Xavier de Maistre was 27 years old, and a soldier in the army of the Sardinian Kingdom, which covered swathes of modern-day Northern Italy and Southern France. He was placed under house-arrest in Turin for fighting an illegal duel. It was during the 42 days of his confinement here that he wrote the manuscript that would become Voyage autour de ma chambre. Inspired by the works of Laurence Sterne, with their digressive and colloquial style, de Maistre decided to make the most of his sentence by recording an exploration of the room as a travel journal. de Maistre’s book imbues the tour of his chamber with great mythology and grand scale. As he wanders the few steps that it takes to circumnavigate the space, his mind spins off into the ether. It parodies the travel journals of the eighteenth-century (such as A Voyage Around the World by Louis de Bougainville, 1771), and could be read today as an early take on the modern vogue for “psychogeography” — each tiny thing that he encounters sends de Maistre into rhapsodies, and mundane journeys become magnificent voyages. |
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Common terms and phrases
able agreeable Alps animal arm-chair Aspasia ball beautiful behold bureau Chambéry chapter charming colors creature death delightful discoveries Doctor Cigna dress Elysian Fields empyrean engravings enjoy enter eyes fancy favor feel follow forget forty-two days gauze give hand Happy Hautcastel heart heaven Hippocrates human ical idea imagination Joannetti journey round lady leave light lived longer looking-glass lover Madame de Haut Mammon meditate ment Metaphysicians mind mirror moment's nature never once one's painter Pericles philosopher picture Plato pleasure poor portrait Raphael reader reflections reply rose and white round my room Satan sensations shepherdess sleep smiled soul sounds of music sublime suddenly tears thee thou thought thousand tion travelling-coat Turin turn tween University of California VEYSSIER violin Voyage Werther word Xavier de Maistre
Popular passages
Page 110 - I shed for that poor Clarissa,1 and for Charlotte's 2 lover ! But if I go out of my way in search of unreal afflictions, I find in return, such virtue, kindness, and disinterestedness in this imaginary world as I have never yet found united in the real world around me. I meet with a woman after my heart's desire, free from whim, lightness, and affectation. I say nothing about beauty ; this I can leave to my imagination, and picture her faultlessly beautiful. And then, closing the book, which no longer...
Page 109 - The Library. T PROMISED to give a dialogue be•^ tween my soul and the OTHER. But there are some chapters which elude me, as it were, or rather, there are others which flow from my pen nolens volens, and derange my plans. Among these is one about my library ; and I will make it as short as I can. Our forty-two days will soon be ended ; and even were it not so, a similar period would not suffice to complete the description of the rich country in which I travel so pleasantly. My library, then, is...
Page 112 - ... hands of those savages? Still less dare I leave him in his attempt to escape from captivity. Indeed, I so enter into his sorrows, I am so interested in him and in his unfortunate family, that the sudden appearance of the ferocious Ruintons makes my hair stand on end. When I read that passage a cold perspiration covers me; and my fright is as lively and real as if I were going to be roasted and eaten by the monsters myself. When I have had enough of tears and love, I turn to some poet, and set...
Page 136 - ... quite ill enough to take to his bed. In the evening Dr. Ranson1 found his pulse hard and feverish, and ordered him to be bled next day, If the campaign had lasted a month longer, the sick man's case would have been past cure. Now, who can doubt about the influence of travelling-coats upon travellers, if he reflect that poor Count de thought more than once that he was about to perform a journey to the other world for having inopportunely donned his dressinggown in this ? i A popular Turin physician...
Page 59 - He was snatched away at the beginning of his career, at the moment when his friendship had become a pressing need to my heart. We supported one another in the hard toil of war.
Page 22 - His productions imitate and reproduce nature. He creates new seas and dark caverns into which the sun has never peered.
Page 113 - Notables ; from the bottom of the nethermost pit to the furthest fixed star beyond the Milky Way ; to the confines of the Universe ; to the gates of chaos ; thus far extends the vast field over the length and breadth of which I leisurely roam.
Page 150 - As if they ever had deprived me of it! As if it were in their power to snatch it from me for a single instant, and to prevent me from traversing, at my will, the vast space ever open before me!
Page 79 - I bring before you, ladies, more certain of your suffrage, than a faithful representation of yourselves ? The picture of which I speak, is a mirror, and no one...
Page 18 - This metaphysical discovery besides has such influence over my thoughts and actions, that it would be very difficult to understand this book, unless 1 give the key to it at the commencement.