JUNE 137 



in mine own hands, I resolved to spend it all, whatever 

 it cost me, in the search of happiness, and to satiate that 

 burning thirst which Nature had enkindled in me from 

 my youth. In which I was so resolute, that I chose rather 

 to live upon ten pounds a year, and go in leather clothes, 

 and feed upon bread and water, so that I might have all 

 my time clearly to myself, than to keep many thousands 

 per annum in an estate of life where my time would be 

 devoured in care and labour. And God was so pleased 

 to accept of that desire, that from that time to this, I have 

 had all things plentifully provided for me, without any 

 care at all, my very study of Felicity making me more 

 to prosper, than all the care in the whole world. So that 

 through His blessing I live a free and a kingly life as if 

 the world were turned again into Eden, or much more, 

 as it is at this day." 



Traherne is remarkable in many ways, but for nothing 

 more than for his mingling of man and nature in the 

 celestial light of infancy. He begins, indeed, with the 

 corn the " orient and immortal wheat " but he goes 

 on to the dust and stones and gates of the town, and then 

 to the old men and the young men and the children. But 

 it was only on " some gilded cloud or flower " that 

 Vaughan saw "some shadows of eternity"; he longs to 

 travel back to his childish time and to a city of the soul, 

 but a shady city of palm-trees. Wordsworth, though he 

 says that " every common spirit " was " apparell'd in 

 celestial light " in his early childhood, only mentions 

 "meadow, grove and stream "; it is a tree, a single field, 

 a flower, that reminds him of his loss; it is the fountains, 

 meadows, hills and groves which he is anxious to assure 

 of his lasting love. Perhaps many people's memories in 

 this kind are of Nature more than of men. Even the 



