Diotimos Library · Journals, Notebooks & Fragments Collection · Bilingual Edition
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English Page · Branch 82 of 121
1834 · June 13, 1834
French
p. 163Le 13.
Et je ne suis pas une dérision, un hochet, quelque chose que les petits enfants poursuivent de leurs moqueries, un être devant qui les plus faibles se redressent, que le pied d’un garçon de dix ans écrase sans que je puisse même me tordre comme le ver sous la roue? Tous les enfants que je rencontre ont comme un instinct avec lequel ils devinent l’imbécillité de mon caractère, et tout aussitôt ils en usent avec moi comme le maître avec l’esclave; leur première idée, dès qu’ils m’aperçoivent, est de me prendre en jouet, de m’agacer avec la mordante naïveté de leur âge. Je ne leur en veux pas : il est dans leur nature de faire servir à leur divertissement tout ce qui est plus faible que leurs faibles mains.
The Green Notebook: 1834
p. 164June 13, 1834
And am I not a laughingstock, a plaything, something little children pursue with their mockery, a being before whom the weakest stand tall, whom a ten-year-old boy’s foot crushes without my even being able to writhe like the worm beneath the wheel? All the children I meet have a kind of instinct by which they divine the feebleness of my character, and immediately they treat me as a master treats a slave; their first thought, as soon as they see me, is to make a toy of me, to tease me with the biting innocence of their age. I bear them no ill will: it is in their nature to turn everything weaker than their weak hands to their amusement.
Socrates
Reading The Green Notebook · 1834 · June 13, 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.