Sir Thomas Browne: The cosmography of himself
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document in English
humanities/philosophy
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published 09/07/2008
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SummaryThere is an adventurer who discovers more that is truly surprising, than the one who penetrates jungles, crosses deserts, and keeps the company of caravans; for all ‘Africa, and her prodigies’ cannot have an effect on the placid, unplumbed nature, other than to store up images in his mind; but the true and successful introvert, who sits with his fishing-pole on the edge of a stream and plunges in imagination through the ripples of water into the depths of himself, who walks in silence like the beasts and simultaneously wanders the labyrinths of his soul, who sits in corners when others are gay and is moved to passion when others are dull, because he attends only to movements within him,—this man is the true adventurer. He discovers, not continents, but motives, and if he should journey to Ultima Thule and back, he does not achieve wealth, honor and renown, which any man can possess, but a more perfect self-knowledge, which few desire. If he journeys to escape what is unpleasant in others, he discovers at the end the same in himself. If he journeys for love of himself, he discovers at the end, that love of such a creature is perversion. And the man who completes the journey and confronts his truest nature is faced with this choice: whether to completely remodel himself, and scourge out what is false, or to whirl constantly through all the ineffective methods of forgetfulness. Sir Thomas Browne is that prodigy of literature, whose prose, unsurpassed in manner or meaning by English writers, does not stem from an unhappy childhood, lost love, physical weakness, unshared vision, or enforced solitude. It stems, in fact, from the inward journey I have just described. Some time around 1630 he provisioned his vessel, weighed anchor, and embarked in the vessel of his first book Religio Medici .
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