Diotimos Library · Journals, Notebooks & Fragments Collection · Bilingual Edition
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Facing Pages · Branch 92 of 121
1834 · September 19, 1834
French
p. 183Le 19.
O vérité! ne m’apparais-tu pas quelquefois comme un fantôme lumineux derrière un nuage? Mais le premier vent te dissipe. Ne serais-tu qu’une illusion des yeux de l’âme? — La raison et la foi ! Quand ces deux mots n’en feront plus qu’un, l’énigme du monde sera résolue. En attendant, que faire? À l’heure où j’écris, le ciel est magnifique, la nature respire des brises fraîches et pleines de vie, le monde roule mélodieusement, et parmi toutes ces harmonies quelque chose de triste et d’alarmé circule : l’esprit de l’homme, qui s’inquiète de tout cet ordre qu’il ne comprend pas.
The Green Notebook: 1834
p. 184September 19, 1834
O truth! Do you not sometimes appear to me like a luminous phantom behind a cloud? But the first wind disperses you. Could you be only an illusion of the soul’s eyes? — Reason and faith! When these two words become one, the world’s enigma will be solved. Meanwhile, what is to be done? At the hour when I write, the sky is magnificent, nature breathes breezes fresh and full of life, the world rolls melodiously, and amid all these harmonies something sad and alarmed circulates: the spirit of man, troubled by all this order which it does not understand.
Socrates
Reading The Green Notebook · 1834 · September 19, 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.