Traherne & Taylor

Today's gleanings from the library are two voices from the 17th century:

The opening paragraph of Thomas Traherne's Centuries (in the 1958 OUP edition)

An Empty Book is like an Infants Soul, in which any Thing may be Written. It is Capable of all Things, but containeth Nothing. I hav a Mind to fill this with Profitable Wonders. And since Love made you put it into my Hands I will fill it with those Truths you Love, without Knowing them: and with those Things which, if it be Possible, shall shew my Lov; To you, in Communicating most Enriching Truths; to Truth, in Exalting Her Beauties in such a Soul.

And from Jeremy Taylor' s The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living:

As those meats are to be avoided which tempt our stomachs beyond our hunger, so also should prudent persons decline all those spectacles, relations, theatres, loud noises and outcries, which concern us not, and are beside our natural or moral interest. Our senses should not, like petulant and wanton girls, wander into markets and theatres without just employment; but when they are sent abroad by reason, return quickly with their errand, and remain modestly at home under their guide till they be sent again.
(Langford Press, 1970, p. 60)