In 1798, upon remembering that his artificial dove took an ignoble nose dive on its maiden flight, and being overcome with “humiliated self-esteem,” Xavier de Maistre decided to go for a walk.

Marveling at the ease with which the birds overhead managed to stay aloft, he awakened to a brand new sense of awe for all the unrecognized majesty around him.

So he wrote:

  “A sense of profound admiration, of a kind I had never before experienced, lit up my soul. I thought I was beholding nature for the first time. I was surprised to hear the buzzing of the flies, the song of the birds, and that mysterious, indistinct hubbub* of the whole living creation as it spontaneously celebrated its author…

  ‘Who is the author of this brilliant mechanism,’ I exclaimed… ‘Who is he who, opening his creative hand, let the first swallow take wing… who ordered the trees to rise up out of the earth… who placed you on the earth’s surface to beautify it?’”

Awkwardly, he realized that he had said all this out loud.

Of course, the people around him stopped and stared, wondering who was this madman, proclaiming infatuation with the common wares of the world. He retired to his room again. Although in a much repaired state of mind.

I hope that you and I, too, become a little intoxicated with creation’s majesty every now and then, even if it causes people to stop and stare at us.

*It is interesting that de Maistre uses this phrase, for it is so reminiscent of kol demamah dakah, the still small voice, or the hushed murmuring, that Elijah witnesses (I Kings 19:12) in the wilderness.

This quote is from the book A Nocturnal Expedition Around My Room, written by Xavier de Maistre and translated by Andrew Brown. Enjoy!