“…the most beautiful book in English…”

Last updated on: October 6, 2012 at 3:40 pm by Jeffrey Overstreet

“…the most beautiful book in English…” 2012-10-06T15:40:13-06:00 Jeffrey Overstreet

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What book did C.S. Lewis call “almost the most beautiful book in English”?

Thomas Traherne, Centuries of Meditations.

I’ve heard about Lewis’s love for this volume many times, but have never gotten around to tracking it down. It seems Traherne also influenced Thomas Merton, who has become one of the most influential writers in my own meditations and writing. (There’s a character named after Merton in The Auralia Thread.)

Thanks to a link posted by one of my favorite bloggers – du Garbandier, at “For the Time Being” – I’ve been perusing some of Traherne’s text, to my great delight and reward. You may start seeing quotes pop up from time to time.

Here’s one:

To contemn the world and to enjoy the world are things contrary to each other. How, then can we contemn the world, which we are born to enjoy? Truly there are two worlds. One was made by God, the other by men. That made by God was great and beautiful. Before the Fall it was Adam’s joy and the Temple of his Glory. That made by men is a Babel of Confusions: Invented Riches, Pomps and Vanities, brought in by Sin: Give all (saith Thomas à Kempis) for all. Leave the one that you may enjoy the other.

And here’s another:

The noble inclination whereby man thirsteth after riches and dominion, is his highest virtue, when rightly guided; and carries him as in a triumphant chariot, to his sovereign happiness. Men are made miserable only by abusing it. Taking a false way to satisfy it, they pursue the wind: nay, labour in the very fire, and after all reap but vanity. Whereas, as God’s love, which is the fountain of all, did cost us nothing: so were all other things prepared by it to satisfy our inclinations in the best of manners, freely, without any cost of ours. Seeing therefore all satisfactions are near at hand, by going further we do but leave them; and wearying ourselves in a long way round about, like a blind man, forsake them. They are immediately near to the very gates of our senses. It becometh the bounty of God to prepare them freely: to make them glorious, and their enjoyment easy. For because His love is free, so are His treasures. He therefore that will despise them because he hath them is marvellously irrational: the way to possess them is to esteem them. And the true way of reigning over them, is to break the world all into parts, to examine them asunder: And if we find them so excellent that better could not possibly be 18made, and so made they could not be more ours, to rejoice in all with pleasure answerable to the merit of their Goodness. We being then Kings over the whole world, when we restore the pieces to their proper places, being perfectly pleased with the whole composure. This shall give you a thorough grounded contentment, far beyond what troublesome wars or conquests can acquire.

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