From the book
Intimate Journals
Charles Baudelaire · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordGradation is ordered change by degrees.
- In Intimate JournalsMon cœur mis à nu LXXXVIII asks for a study of the law in both natural and human works.
- In this editionThis entry depends on a consequential witness difference.
- A place to readl’universelle et éternelle loi de la gradation — The projected inquiry makes an expansive claim.
Meaning
Gradation is ordered change by degrees. In Mon cœur mis à nu LXXXVIII, the repeated ‘little by little’ makes an abstract law sound like the patient accumulation it describes. Compound interest supplies the comparison: an increment changes the base on which subsequent increments act.
The vocabulary is shared by natural processes, artistic skill, pleasure, and the will. It is not identical with the political doctrine of automatic progress, because its moral value depends on what accumulates and how.
Use in the book
Mon cœur mis à nu LXXXVIII asks for a study of the law in both natural and human works. The imperative ‘Study’ announces a research programme rather than a demonstrated universal theorem. Its applications to artistic and literary skill are readily connected to repeated practice, but the governing print also applies it to a fluctuating treasury of sensual pleasure. That last clause makes growth neither exclusively moral nor exclusively productive.
Mon cœur mis à nu CXI insists everything occurs gradually, while Mon cœur mis à nu CXVI says a succession of small acts of will yields a large result. The inverse process is equally important: every retreat of the will loses a particle of substance, so hesitation can create an enormous future repair bill. Accumulation becomes a way to understand both hope and fear.
This logic explains why the smallest immediate action matters in the late regimen. A completed act is supposed to make the next one more possible; delay is never quite neutral. But repeated exhortation is not evidence that the process worked as promised. The notebooks preserve attempts to activate the law, alongside admissions of plans not realized.
Places to read
- Mon cœur mis à nu LXXXVIIIl’universelle et éternelle loi de la gradation — The projected inquiry makes an expansive claim.
- Mon cœur mis à nu LXXXVIIIcomme les intérêts composés — Financial growth provides a model for cumulative force.
- Mon cœur mis à nu LXXXVIIIle trésor variable de la volupté. — The printed application concerns pleasure, not will.
- Mon cœur mis à nu CXVIUne suite de petites volontés fait un gros résultat. — The late regimen translates accumulation into acts.
Translation in this edition
This entry depends on a consequential witness difference. The governing 1920 print has volupté in Mon cœur mis à nu LXXXVIII, translated ‘sensual pleasure’; the comparison transcription has volonté. The 2026 edition follows the print and discloses the variant in note 80. Replacing pleasure with will would make the argument more tidily ascetic while erasing its actual complexity in this edition.