Diotimos Library · Journals, Notebooks & Fragments Collection · Bilingual Edition
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Facing Pages · Branch 14 of 121
1833 · March 15, 1833
French
p. 27Le 15.
Nous vivons trop peu en dedans, nous n’y vivons presque pas. Qu’est devenu cet œil intérieur que Dieu nous a donné pour veiller sans cesse sur notre âme, pour être le témoin des jeux mystérieux de la pensée, du mouvement ineffable de la vie dans le tabernacle de l’humanité? Il est fermé, il dort; et nous ouvrons largement nos yeux terrestres, et nous ne comprenons rien à la nature, ne nous servant pas du sens qui nous la révélerait, réfléchie dans le miroir divin de l’âme. Il n’y a pas de contact entre la nature et nous : nous n’avons l’intelligence que des formes extérieures, et point du sens, du langage intime, de la beauté en tant qu’éternelle et participant à Dieu, toutes choses qui seraient limpidement retracées et mirées dans l’âme, douée d’une merveilleuse faculté spéculaire. Oh! ce contact de la nature et de l’âme engendrerait une ineffable volupté, un amour prodigieux du ciel et de Dieu.
Descendre dans l’âme des hommes et faire descendre la nature dans son âme.
The Green Notebook: 1833
p. 28March 15, 1833
We live too little within; we scarcely live there at all. What has become of that inward eye which God gave us to watch ceaselessly over our soul, to witness the mysterious play of thought, the ineffable movement of life within humanity’s tabernacle? It is closed, it sleeps; and we open our earthly eyes wide, and understand nothing of nature, failing to use the sense which would reveal it to us reflected in the soul’s divine mirror. There is no contact between nature and us: we understand only the outward forms, and nothing of the meaning, the inward language, beauty as something eternal and sharing in God, all of which would be clearly traced and mirrored in the soul, endowed with a wonderful power of reflection. Oh, this contact between nature and the soul would bring forth an ineffable delight, a prodigious love of heaven and of God.
To descend into the souls of men, and make nature descend into one’s own soul.
Socrates
Reading The Green Notebook · 1833 · March 15, 1833
Ask about a concept, passage, contradiction, or connection.
Socrates will begin with this book and its sources.About This Reading Edition
Maurice de Guérin’s journal moves between close attention to nature, friendship, faith, and the inward demands of poetry. This bilingual edition presents the complete Journal section of the 1864 printing, with a separate appendix of earlier printed passages from 1861.
Historical Text and Translation
The French follows G. S. Trébutien’s sixth edition of Journal, lettres et poèmes (Paris: Didier et Cie, 1864), pages 3–126. Its 116 dated entries run from July 1832 to October 1835. Five earlier passages from Reliquiae (1861) appear separately in the appendix. Completeness refers to the printed Journal, rather than the autograph notebook; the following letters and poems are outside this edition.
About Diotimos Editions
Diotimos Editions prepared this independent English translation directly from the French, preserving Guérin’s imagery, repetitions, intimate voice, and original paragraph divisions. French and English remain aligned for comparison. Translator’s notes clarify words, quotations, and allusions, while historical editor notes retain their separate attribution. The Essential setting keeps explanations useful to reading; All also includes the note on the edition’s typographic treatment.
Rights
The historical French printings are in the public domain in the United States. The independent English translation and new editorial notes are © 2026 Diotimos Editions. The linked facsimiles identify the printed witnesses used for this edition. Historical annotations and editorial conjectures remain attributed to their source editors, and the earlier variant passages are presented separately from the later Journal text.