Diotimos Library · Journals, Notebooks & Fragments Collection · Bilingual Edition
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Facing Pages · Branch 72 of 121
1834 · February 17, 1834
French
p. 143Le 17.
O pureté des champs ! J’allais sans cesse montant de la nature à Dieu, et redescendant de Dieu à la nature. C’était là ma vie intérieure mêlée de quelques mélancolies, de quelques tressaillements du cœur, mais qui ne faisaient qu’adoucir ou presser le cours de mes pensées sans les altérer. Rien de souillé n’entrait dans mon âme et je sentais s’accroître les forces de mon intelligence; car lorsque l’homme intérieur est pur, sa pensée s’élève sans obstacle et va toujours s’approchant de la source de toute force intellectuelle. Je commençais à dominer mes découragements et à prendre cette belle et noble confiance d’un cœur qui se sent l’ami de Dieu et qui ne saurait s’abattre tant qu’il s’appuie sur ce sentiment.
The Green Notebook: 1834
p. 144February 17, 1834
O purity of the fields! I was forever ascending from nature to God, and descending again from God to nature. That was my inward life, mingled with a few melancholy feelings, a few tremors of the heart, which only softened or hastened the course of my thoughts without altering them. Nothing sullied entered my soul, and I felt the powers of my mind increasing; for when the inward man is pure, his thought rises without hindrance and draws ever nearer to the source of all intellectual strength. I was beginning to master my discouragements and to gain that fine and noble confidence of a heart which feels itself God’s friend, and cannot lose courage so long as it rests upon that feeling.
Socrates
Reading The Green Notebook · 1834 · February 17, 1834
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.