Diotimos Library · Journals, Notebooks & Fragments Collection · English Edition
Centuries of Meditations
Annotated Edition · With an Introduction, Notes and an Outline.
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English Edition · Branch 183 of 454
The Second Century · Meditation II.69
Centuries of Meditations
p. 18369
The sun and stars please me in ministering to you. They please me in ministering to a thousand others as well as you. And you please me because you can live and love in the Image of God: not in a blind and brutish manner, as beasts do; by a mere appetite and rude propensity, but with a regulated well-ordered Love, upon clear causes, and with a rational affection, guided to divine and celestial ends. Which is to love with a Divine and Holy Love, Glorious and Blessed. We are all prone to love; but the art lies in managing our love: to make it truly amiable and proportionable. To love for God’s sake, and to this end, that we may be well-pleasing unto Him: to love with a design to imitate Him, and to satisfy the principles of intelligent nature, and to become honorable, is to love in a Blessed and Holy manner.
Socrates
Reading Centuries of Meditations · The Second Century · Meditation II.69
Ask about a concept, passage, contradiction, or connection.
Socrates will begin with this book and its sources.About This Reading Edition
Thomas Traherne’s Centuries explore felicity, childhood vision, love, and the soul’s capacity to enjoy the world. This annotated English edition presents all 410 meditations across five Centuries, with an introduction, explanatory notes, an outline, and textual apparatus.
Historical Text
The Centuries survive in Traherne’s manuscript and were first published by Bertram Dobell in London in 1908. The supplied edition follows the corrected Dobell text, with manuscript readings documented in its Note on the Text and Textual Notes. The four complete Centuries contain one hundred meditations each; the unfinished Fifth contains ten.
About This Edition
Diotimos Editions prepared the introduction, explanatory notes, glossary, reading guide, outline, and textual apparatus for this English original. Century and meditation numbers preserve the work’s structure, while verse line breaks, italics, and struck-through manuscript cancellations remain visible. Notes accompany their passages in the reader and Book Mode.
Rights
Thomas Traherne’s historical text and Bertram Dobell’s 1908 printing are in the public domain. The introduction, notes, and apparatus are © 2026 Diotimos Editions. Historical printing and transcription links identify the edition’s copy-text; manuscript corrections and unresolved readings are documented in the supplied editorial apparatus.