Digital Donne: the Online Variorum
The 1654 Prose Letters Letter 6, cont. (p.12) |
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to lay little fault upon you, because my par- don might be easier, if I transgress into a longer and busier letter then your Countrey sports admit; but you may read it in winter: And by that time I may more clearly ex- press my self for those things which have entred into me, concerning your soul: for as the greatest advantage which mans soul is thought to have beyond others, is that which they call Actum reflexum, and iteratum, (for Beasts do the same things as we do, but they do not consider nor remember the circum- stances and inducements; and by what power, and faculty, it is that they do them) so of those which they call Actum reflexum the noblest is that which reflects upon the soul it self, and considers and meditates it, Into which consideration when I walke after my slow and unperfect pace, I begin to think that as litigious men tyred with suits, admit any arbitrement; and Princes travailed with long and wastfull war, de- scend to such conditions of peace, as they are soon after ashamed to have embraced: [CW: so] |
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