Читать книгу Centuries of Meditations - Thomas Traherne - Страница 10

Heroes, Philosophers of Philosophers, Poets of Poets; the identity of the masculine ideal of Hero and Philosopher and the feminine ideal of Poet and Saint. Their mysteries have been published to all the world in the choicest visions and actions, thoughts and strophes, of the choicest members of these other fraternities ; yet not only do they remain utterly obscure and illegible to the common world of men, they are dark to all of even those fraternities who have not been initiated to the supreme degree."

There is much more in this remarkable essay that I should like to quote : but I must restrict myself to one other passage, in which Thomson enunciates a truth which Traherne was the first, I think, distinctly to apprehend, and which he was never tired of enforcing :—

"Such are a few of the loftiest Open Secret Societies, these organisations of Nature so perfect and enduring, so superior to the most subtle organisations elaborated by man. And in all of them, I think, we find that the poor and the mean and the ignorant and the simple have their part no less—nay, have their part even more—than the rich and the great and the learned and the clever. Let us praise the impartiality of our Mother Nature, the most venerable, the ever young, the fountain of true democracy, the generous annunciator of true liberty and equality and fraternity : who bestoweth on all her children alike all things most necessary to true health and wealth, the sunshine, the air, the water, the

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