A voyage without companionship, that is to say without conversation, is one of the saddest pleasures of life.

Germaine de Staël (1766-1817) Swiss-French writer, woman of letters, critic, salonist [Anne Louise Germaine de Staël-Holstein, Madame de Staël, Madame Necker]

Quoted in Margaret Goldsmith, Madame de Staël (1938)

See also here.