A Schoolmaster's Diary: Being Extracts from the Journal of Patrick Traherne, M.A., Sometime Assistant Master at Radchester and Marlton.Traherne, Patrick
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A Schoolmaster's Diary: Being Extracts from the Journal of Patrick Traherne, M.A., Sometime Assistant Master at Radchester and Marlton.
Traherne, Patrick
Traherne, Patrick, 1885-1917
"Your enjoyment of the world is never right till every morning you
wake in Heaven; see yourself in your Father's Palace: and look upon
the skies, the earth, and the air, as Celestial Joys; you never enjoy
the world aright till the sea itself floweth in your veins, till you
are clothed with the heavens and crowned with the stars: and perceive
yourself to be the sole heir of the whole world, and more than so,
because men are in it who are every one sole heirs as well as you.
Till you can sing and rejoice and delight in God as misers do in gold,
and kings in sceptres, you never enjoy the world. Till your spirit
filleth the whole world and the stars are your jewels: till you are as
familiar with the ways of God in all ages as with your walk and table:
till you love men so as to desire their happiness with a thirst equal
to the zeal of your own, you never enjoy the world. You never enjoy
the world aright, till you so love the beauty of enjoying it that
you are covetous and earnest to persuade others to enjoy it. There is
so much blindness and ingratitude and damned folly in it. The world
is a mirror of infinite Beauty, yet no man sees it. It is a Temple of
Majesty, yet no man regards it. It is the paradise of God, the place
of Angels and the Gate of Heaven."
I remember rushing, book in hand, late at night to Stapleton's rooms
(Stapleton was a school-friend of mine, who had come up with me that
term) and reading it to him as one of the finest things I had ever
chanced upon. After I had finished I noticed that he was not alone;
sitting in a far corner, in the depths of a 'Varsity chair, I now saw
a fair-haired, fresh-faced undergraduate whom I had not up till that
moment met. He broke in upon my enthusiastic discovery. "I am glad
you like that," he began. "It is not very well known yet. The author
of that book, Thomas Traherne, was an ancestor of mine: my name is
Traherne too."
Somehow from that evening I have always associated Patrick with that
glowing passage. We became fast friends and for the four years we were
at Oxford, Stapleton, Traherne and I spent all our spare time together.
We were known, for some obscure reason, as "The Three Musketeers."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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