Diotimos Library · Journals, Notebooks & Fragments Collection · Bilingual Edition
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English Page · Branch 37 of 121
1833 · May 3, 1833
French
p. 73Le 3.
Jour réjouissant, plein de soleil, brise tiède, parfums dans l’air; dans l’âme, félicité. La verdure gagne à vue d’œil; elle s’est élancée du jardin dans les bosquets, elle domine tout le long de l’étang; elle saute, pour ainsi dire, d’arbre en arbre, de hallier en hallier, dans les champs et sur les coteaux, et je la vois qui a déjà atteint la forêt et commence à s’épancher sur son large dos. Bientôt elle aura débordé aussi loin que l’œil peut aller, et tous ces grands espaces clos par l’horizon seront ondoyants et mugissants comme une vaste mer, une mer d’émeraude. Encore quelques jours et nous aurons toute la pompe, tout le déploiement du règne végétal.
The Green Notebook: 1833
p. 74May 3, 1833
A joyous day, full of sun, a warm breeze, perfumes in the air; within the soul, felicity. Greenery gains before one’s eyes; it has leapt from the garden into the groves, reigns all along the pond; it jumps, so to speak, from tree to tree, thicket to thicket, in the fields and on the slopes, and I see it has already reached the forest and is beginning to spill across its broad back. Soon it will have overflowed as far as the eye can reach, and all these great spaces enclosed by the horizon will be billowing and bellowing like a vast sea, an emerald sea. A few days more and we shall have all the splendor, all the unfolding of the vegetable kingdom.
Socrates
Reading The Green Notebook · 1833 · May 3, 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.