Diotimos Library · Journals, Notebooks & Fragments Collection · Bilingual Edition
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Facing Pages · Branch 59 of 121
1833 · October 4, 1833
French
p. 117Le 4.
Si je savais un peu de dessin, j’aurais emporté quelque chose de notre course d’hier à Josselin. J’ai enfin contemplé un vieux château de baron. Des tours énormes, des remparts cyclopéens enserrent dans leur ceinture massive l’architecture la plus gracieuse, la plus déliée, la plus frêle en apparence, un de ces rêves du moyen âge brodés en l’air sur la pierre avec la délicatesse de l’aiguille des fées. Quand il y a du crépuscule, prenez une feuille dont les insectes ont dévoré le parenchyme, et considérez à la lumière mourante ce réseau de fibres et de nervures délicates, vous aurez comme une miniature des délicieuses fantaisies de l’art gothique.
The Green Notebook: 1833
p. 118October 4, 1833
If I could draw a little, I would have brought something away from yesterday’s excursion to Josselin. At last I have contemplated an old baronial castle. Enormous towers and cyclopean ramparts enclose within their massive girdle the most graceful, most delicate architecture, the frailest in appearance, one of those dreams of the Middle Ages embroidered in the air upon stone with the delicacy of the fairies’ needle. At twilight, take a leaf whose parenchyma the insects have devoured and consider in the dying light that network of delicate fibers and veins: you will have something like a miniature of the delightful fancies of Gothic art.
Socrates
Reading The Green Notebook · 1833 · October 4, 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.