Tennis

 

Here are words of Thomas Traherne (‘Centuries’, I 22) on insatiableness: “Thus men get one Hundred Pound a year that they may get another; and having two covet Eight, and there is no End of all their Labor; becaus the Desire of their Soul is Insatiable. Like Alexander the Great they must hav all: and when they hav got it all be quiet. And may they not do all this before they begin? Nay it would be well, if they could be Quiet. But if after all, they shall be like the stars, that are seated on high, but hav no Rest, what gain they more, but Labor for their Trouble? It was wittily fained that that Yong man sate down and Cried for more Worlds. So insatiable is Man that Millions will not Pleas him. They are no more then so many Tennis-Balls, in comparison of the Greatness and Highness of his Soul.” Written soon after the end of the English Civil War, Traherne questions the whole endeavour of fighting for land, or wanting to be a millionaire. He has observed and knows personally that humans are insatiable. But rather than judging, Traherne’s argument is that we could use our insatiability for godly rather than worldly and selfish pursuits. For him this is, as he puts it, true nobility. The Puritans were against tennis. The main reasons given were that it was a ball game, thus leading to vice and violence; that ‘people like us’ could be enticed to play the game on Sunday, instead of resting; and that it was a game played exclusively in Continental Catholic monarchical courts. Did the game not originate in the monasteries? Enough said. Royal, or Real, tennis was not the same as modern lawn tennis. It was not played by ‘people like us’. It was elitist. Imagine, nations could come to blows over tennis. Leaders might exchange a to-and-fro of words, send dispatches, employ lawyers, engage in coverups. It was a symbol of oppression. It could get right out of hand. The whole universe could end up filled with whirling tennis balls. In a word, insatiable. How then do we read Traherne? Given his happy nature, we can imagine him playing royal tennis. Surely even tennis has its own felicitous place in the order of existence. Youth may be recalled, a tonic for the weekend. And he has an eye for detail. What’s all the racket? He doesn’t see the point in going to a court of law, or war, over more tennis balls. To enunciate these meditations to some purpose, his writing is full of sallies, lobs, aces, and the occasional well-timed forehand smash. What’s the issue, in comparison with the greatness and highness of our souls?, he asks. Enough said.