INTRODUCTION
we are acquainted with. I do not mean St. Augustine's Confessions or the famous book of Jean Jacques Rousseau, with which the Meditations is sometimes compared, but a considerable book, which appears to have grown up, in a similar way to this one, in the busy loneliness of the Chartreuse. The thoughts of Guigue, 5th Prior (born a.d. 1083, elected a.d. 1110), have at last been printed in their original order and completeness.[1] They reveal a series of religious musings: 'not a treatise nor the scraps of a treatise, not an autobiography, but the sequence of the Prior's reflexions, written scrupulously but with no affectation, in order to see clearly into himself, and to seek humbly in the strength of his God a sure refuge for his own frailty'.[2] From the context it is clear that Dom Wilmart, as he penned this sentence, was conscious of the striking resemblance in manner and motive of Guigue to the Roman Emperor. In what follows he again writes in terms closely applicable to the Book we are considering: 'Guigue, when he likes, knows well how to pursue a train of argument . . . yet his habitual taste is for sentences more or less brief, where he endeavours to present an original thought, to enunciate a true maxim, suggest an antithesis, outline a miniature.' A further resemblance between the Prior of the Chartreuse and Marcus consists in their occasional references to experiences of their own life, with here and there the mention of a contemporary by name, for instance the Prior's namesake, the Baron Guigo.
The Meditations might then be taken as an exactly similar book,[3] with a parallel genesis, and, with the necessary allowances, much the same outlook upon experience.
- ↑ Le Recueil des Pensées du B. Guigue, Dom André Wilmart, Paris, 1936. Guigue was previously accessible in a rearrangement in twenty chapters, selected from the entire work, Louvain, 1546 (Wilmart, op.c. Preface, p. 41). Gataker more than once cites this edition to illustrate Marcus.
- ↑ op.c. Preface, p. 10 and p. 13.
- ↑ What Dr. Rendall says of Marcus, op.c. Introd., p. civ, is unconsciously very close to Dom Wilmart's description of Guigue's aim and manner.
