Selected Works

All mysticism is fundamentally the same its essential characteristic is an ardent desire for union with God. But it expresses itself in different ways, according to the nature, nationality, and religion of the mystic and the time in which he lives. To understand Traherne aright, therefore, we should have some knowledge of other English mystics of the seventeenth century, particularly of those who belonged, as he did, to the Church of England. His mystical philosophy owes, indeed, more to his own temperament than to the thought of his time.