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 366 of 454
The Fourth Century · Meditation IV.52
Centuries of Meditations
p. 36652
Thus you see how God has perfectly pleased me: it ought also to be my care perfectly to please Him. He has given me freedom, and adventured the power of sinning into my hands: it ought to be a principle engraven in me, to use it nobly, to be illustrious and faithful, to please Him in the use of it, to consult His honour, and having all the creatures in all worlds by His gift ministering unto me, to behave myself as a faithful friend to so great a Majesty, so bountiful a Lord, so Divine a Benefactor. Nothing is so easy as to yield one’s assent to glorious principles, nothing so clear in upright nature, nothing so obscure to find in perverted, nothing so difficult to practise at all. In the rubbish of depraved Nature they are lost, though when they are found by any one, and shewn, like jewels they shine by their native splendour.
Socrates
Reading Centuries of Meditations · The Fourth Century · Meditation IV.52
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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.