Life & Wisdom Quote by Karl Philipp Moritz

There is a delicious pettiness in that apology: “I am very sorry to say” arrives like a napkin dabbed at the mouth after a messy bite. Moritz performs politeness while confessing an impolite truth - he “rejoiced” not at Windsor itself, but at seeing its towers “behind” him. The sentence is engineered to sound decorous and then quietly stabby, a travel writer’s version of smiling while exiting a bad party.

Moritz was a German author moving through late-18th-century England, a culture that marketed its grandeur as moral proof: monarchy as architecture, legitimacy as skyline. Windsor Castle is not just scenery; it’s the emblem of English self-regard. By framing his happiness as relief at departure, Moritz punctures that aura. The towers, typically symbols of stability and national pride, become a backdrop he’s eager to shake off. “Once more” hints at repetition, even entrapment - he’s had to endure this before, and the joy is in regaining distance.

The subtext is about freedom and claustrophobia. Castles promise romance from afar; up close they can feel like institutions, schedules, surveillance, hierarchy. Moritz’s apology is a social maneuver: he knows he’s offending taste, class, maybe even his hosts, and he flags the breach while committing it anyway. That’s what makes the line work. It captures the private emotion many travel narratives edit out: the pure, irrational happiness of leaving a place that insists you admire it.