WorkGeorge Herbert

The Temper

The Temper (I) [‘How should I praise thee, Lord!’], in The Temple: Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations (Cambridge: Thomas Buck and Roger Daniel, 1633) Inferred

George Herbert (1593–1633) · Cambridge: Thomas Buck and Roger Daniel, 1633

InferredThis is a quotation of George Herbert's poem "The Temper (I)" from The Temple (1633). Herbert’s published text reads: "Yet take thy way; for sure thy way is best: / Stretch or contract me, thy poor debtor: / This is but tuning of my breast, / To make the music better." Fuller's version substitutes "It seemed but" for "This is but" and "the breast" for "my breast," variations characteristic of quotation from memory. Fuller does not name Herbert.

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Documented 1845

Letters

Selected engagements, in chronological order.

Totals count documented engagements, once at the earliest witness. How we count →

Reprints, Memoirs passages, and repeat notes within a single manuscript are shown but never counted twice. Evidence for this work is selective, not exhaustive. Methodology →

When Fuller engaged with this work

No datable encounters with Herbert, George have been catalogued yet.

1845—

Letter to James Nathan

p108

quoted · read

“Whenever there was dissonance between us, it ended as being so superficial: / It seemed but tuning of the breast / To make the music better.”

Fuller, Margaret. Love-Letters of Margaret Fuller, 1845-1846. With an introduction by Julia Ward Howe. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1903.

Inferred This is a quotation of George Herbert's poem "The Temper (I)" from The Temple (1633). Herbert’s published text reads: "Yet take thy way; for sure thy way is best: / Stretch or contract me, thy poor debtor: / This is but tuning of my breast, / To make the music better." Fuller's version substitutes "It seemed but" for "This is but" and "the breast" for "my breast," variations characteristic of quotation from memory. Fuller does not name Herbert.