Dorothy Osborne, Sociability, and the Laws of Friendship

Love, Capacity, and Traherne's Idea of the Book

“…Instrumental friendships, for example-those "based on utility and mutual benefit"-could easily take on affective and sympathetic registers, and a relationship initially based on a hierarchical mentorship could also show signs of reciprocal affection. 40 As Brown notes elsewhere, Donne's relationship with the Countess of Bedford fits this description quite well. 41 It is certainly possible that the relationship between Traherne and his dedicatee in the Centuries began as a mentorship and developed into a more affective bond, or that it contained an affective bond even as it preserved the hierarchy implicit in a spiritual mentorship.…”

“…There is nothing here that explicitly distinguishes a "Deep Friendship" from an "instrumental friendship," especially if we keep Brown's indivisible spectrum in mind. 42 In fact, just two entries later Traherne argues that "[t]rue Lov … contenteth not it self in Shewing Great Things unless it can make them Greatly Usefull" (1.6, p. 8). But despite the scholastic teaching that "there is no Lov of a thing unknown," it is essential to Traherne that love precede knowledge: "We lov we know not what.…”