From the book
Centuries of Meditations
Thomas Traherne · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordRecreation is an activity that refreshes or delights.
- In TraherneIn his account of the friend’s principles, Traherne imagines what ordinary life would become if universal charity displaced the sins that disfigure it.
- In this editionInnocent does substantive work in the phrase “innocent recreations”: the passage envisages occupations freed from vice.
- A place to beginTrades become innocent recreations in a society animated by universal charity.
Meaning
Recreation is an activity that refreshes or delights. Its presence here matters because Traherne does not condemn every occupation associated with the fallen social world.
Use in the book
In his account of the friend’s principles, Traherne imagines what ordinary life would become if universal charity displaced the sins that disfigure it. The stars, sun, and sea already retain their created beauty; rapacity and envy, rather than their material fabric, produce human misery. Trades would remain, but would become innocent recreations and pleasant ornaments. Work is therefore capable of transformation through its governing affections.
The passage qualifies the much harsher treatment of shops, markets, and diversions in the autobiographical account. An occupation’s capacity to please does not condemn it; the question is whether it serves mutual happiness or distracts people from their true inheritance. Recreation is a result of rightly ordered society, not a substitute for the study of felicity.
Places to read
In this edition
Innocent does substantive work in the phrase “innocent recreations”: the passage envisages occupations freed from vice. Do not turn it into a blanket endorsement of every amusement.