From the book
Centuries of Meditations
Thomas Traherne · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordBusiness is an affair that occupies attention.
- In TraherneThe single concentrated use at II.89 is deliberately diminutive: a little trifling business can absorb the person whom the whole world waits upon.
- In this editionThe older broad sense of an occupying affair is required.
- A place to beginTrifling business distracts the soul while divine mercy tolerates its interrupted attention.
Meaning
Business is an affair that occupies attention. It need not mean trade, a company, or an economic enterprise.
Use in the book
The single concentrated use at II.89 is deliberately diminutive: a little trifling business can absorb the person whom the whole world waits upon. Against the claim that the soul should sustain the beauty of its objects within, ordinary distraction exposes the gap between present weakness and perfected attention. Traherne also calls God's tolerance of such interruptions a mercy. The meditation therefore combines a high ideal with acknowledgment of the unsettled conditions of earthly life. It does not establish that every practical occupation is trivial; its point is the disproportion between an absorbing concern and the neglected inheritance.
Places to read
- II.89Trifling business distracts the soul while divine mercy tolerates its interrupted attention.
In this edition
The older broad sense of an occupying affair is required. Reading “business” exclusively as commercial employment gives the criticism an unwarranted narrow target.
Source note
Primary text: II.89. II.89 is the explicit occurrence and controls this short article’s scope.