The art of travel (8)

«Eight decades later, Nietzsche, who had read and admired De Maistre (and spent much time in his room), picked up on the thought:

When we observe how some people know how to manage their experiences - their insignificant, everyday experiences - so that they become an arable soil that bears fruit three times a year, while others - and how many there are! - are driven through surging waves of destiny, the most multifarous currents of the times and the nations, and yet always remain on top, bobbing like a cork, then we are in the end tempted to divide manking into a minority (a minimality) of those who know how to make much of little, and a majority of those who know how to make little of much.

We meet people who have crossed deserts, floated in icecaps and cut their way through jungles - and yet in whose souls we would search in vain for evidence of what they have witnessed. Dressed in pink and blue pyjamas, satisfied within the confines of his own bedroom, Xavier de Maistre was gently nudging us to try, before taking off for distant hemispheres, to notice what we have already seen.»