A Schoolmaster's Diary / Being Extracts from the Journal of Patrick Traherne, M.A., Sometime Assistant Master at Radchester and Marlton.

The cover image was restored by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN AT THE COMPLETE PRESS WEST NORWOOD LONDON
TO ELSPETH TRAHERNE WITHOUT WHOSE VALUABLE HELP I SHOULD HAVE BEEN TOTALLY AT A LOSS WHAT TO INCLUDE AND WHAT TO OMIT IN MEMORY OF PATRICK

Patrick Traherne, only son of the Rev. Thomas Traherne of North Darley Vicarage, Derbyshire, was born on July 14, 1885. He was educated at Rugby and New College, Oxford, and immediately upon leaving the University he became a Public School master.
I well remember my first meeting with him. It was during my first term at Oxford. I had been reading Centuries of Meditations and in particular this passage, which I cannot refrain from quoting, because to it I owe my friendship with Patrick:
Your enjoyment of the world is never right till every morning you wake in Heaven; see yourself in your Father's Palace: and look upon the skies, the earth, and the air, as Celestial Joys; you never enjoy the world aright till the sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens and crowned with the stars: and perceive yourself to be the sole heir of the whole world, and more than so, because men are in it who are every one sole heirs as well as you. Till you can sing and rejoice and delight in God as misers do in gold, and kings in sceptres, you never enjoy the world. Till your spirit filleth the whole world and the stars are your jewels: till you are as familiar with the ways of God in all ages as with your walk and table: till you love men so as to desire their happiness with a thirst equal to the zeal of your own, you never enjoy the world. You never enjoy the world aright, till you so love the beauty of enjoying it that you are covetous and earnest to persuade others to enjoy it. There is so much blindness and ingratitude and damned folly in it. The world is a mirror of infinite Beauty, yet no man sees it. It is a Temple of Majesty, yet no man regards it. It is the paradise of God, the place of Angels and the Gate of Heaven.