I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from.
 Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance (1841). copy citation

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Author Ralph Waldo Emerson
Source Self-Reliance
Topic self travel escape
Date 1841
Language English
Reference in "Essays: First Series"
Note
Weblink https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Essays:_First_Series/Self-Reliance

Context

“He carries ruins to ruins.
Travelling is a fool's paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I seek the Vatican, and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go.
3. But the rage of travelling is a symptom of a deeper unsoundness affecting the whole intellectual action.” source

Meaning and analysis

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