From the book
Centuries of Meditations
Thomas Traherne · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordQuick can mean alive, keenly sensitive, or responsive; to quicken is to give life, revive, or stir into active exercise.
- In TraherneThe prayer for quickening asks that inert spiritual powers become alive to divine love and glory.
- In this editionSeparate these uses from ordinary “quickly” and the compound “quicksands.”
- A place to beginThe speaker asks Christ to quicken faculties described as spiritually dead.
Meaning
Quick can mean alive, keenly sensitive, or responsive; to quicken is to give life, revive, or stir into active exercise. Mere speed does not capture these senses.
Use in the book
The prayer for quickening asks that inert spiritual powers become alive to divine love and glory. Christ and the Holy Spirit are addressed as sources of this animation. The word can also describe curiosity awakened by new experience or affection strengthened into action. When Love is quick and tender, the stress falls on sensitivity throughout its reach, as the spider feels at its extremities. The cluster therefore links spiritual life with actual responsiveness: possessing a faculty is insufficient if it remains numb or idle.
Places to read
In this edition
Separate these uses from ordinary “quickly” and the compound “quicksands.” Shared spelling does not make every occurrence an example of the spiritual life-giving sense.