From the book
Centuries of Meditations
Thomas Traherne · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordDelight is pleasurable satisfaction in an object; transitively, to delight is to give such pleasure to someone else.
- In TraherneTraherne does not confine delight to inward feeling.
- In this editionDistinguish “delight in” from “delight” used with a person as its object.
- A place to beginChanging conditions, rather than perpetual noon, provide the delights of a day.
Meaning
Delight is pleasurable satisfaction in an object; transitively, to delight is to give such pleasure to someone else. This double direction is important: the soul receives delight and becomes a source of it.
Use in the book
Traherne does not confine delight to inward feeling. It is a way of responding fittingly to real excellence, and the choice of one’s ends alters what can give it. Two students may know the same material while only one discovers communion with God in it. Delight also has a temporal texture: mornings, evenings, and rest offer goods that uninterrupted brightness would abolish. In friendship, one becomes delightful through virtues that allow others to enjoy one’s company. Pleasure is therefore drawn into judgement, knowledge, and mutual responsibility rather than abandoned as a merely lower appetite.
Places to read
In this edition
Distinguish “delight in” from “delight” used with a person as its object. The latter concerns giving joy and is central to the book’s reciprocity of love.