From the book
Centuries of Meditations
Thomas Traherne · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Misery
misery; miserable; wanting amid enjoyments
Misery is wretchedness or an unfulfilled condition.
Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordMisery is wretchedness or an unfulfilled condition.
- In TraherneThe sharp contrast is between having without prizing and prizing without having.
- In this editionTraherne’s contrasts explain different forms of misery; they do not establish that every sufferer’s deprivation results from ingratitude or a voluntary failure to prize.
- A place to beginWant can become torment when goods are seen and desired but not enjoyed.
Meaning
Misery is wretchedness or an unfulfilled condition. Traherne distinguishes its experienced pain from the moral disorder that may initially remain unfelt.
Use in the book
The sharp contrast is between having without prizing and prizing without having. The second condition feels deprivation intensely; the first may feel little because its apprehension is asleep. Greater culpability and greater present discomfort therefore do not always coincide. The warning of awakening gives the distinction its eschatological seriousness.
The language of love supplies another measure. To hate and be hated is a profound bondage, from which redemption restores the soul to relationship. Misery is consequently not exhausted by an inventory of missing goods. It may consist in the inability or refusal to enter the relations that make existing goods enjoyable, while still remaining capable of desire.
Places to read
In this edition
Traherne’s contrasts explain different forms of misery; they do not establish that every sufferer’s deprivation results from ingratitude or a voluntary failure to prize.
Source note
From the book
René
François-René de Chateaubriand · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Misery and Misfortune
misère; infortune; malheur
Misère names wretchedness or impoverishment of the human condition, not simply an unfortunate event.
Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordMisère names wretchedness or impoverishment of the human condition, not simply an unfortunate event.
- In RenéThe Preface answers Morellet’s objection that finite grief is one of life’s benefits.
- In this editionThe supplied translation distinguishes ‘misery’ from ‘misfortune’, following the author’s explicit argument.
- A place to readle cœur de l'homme est fini — Aubry’s quoted proposition grounds the controversy over grief and human limitation.
Meaning
Misère names wretchedness or impoverishment of the human condition, not simply an unfortunate event. Infortune is a misfortune that befalls someone. The Preface explicitly insists on this distinction while defending Father Aubry’s statement, quoted from Atala, that people cannot remain unhappy for long. A limit can be fortunate in its immediate effect and still reveal the heart’s poverty.
Malheur has a wider range: an unhappy condition, a particular blow, or the suffering it causes. The terms overlap in ordinary expression but must not be flattened where Chateaubriand makes an argument from their difference. ‘Misery’ in the English carries more than economic deprivation.
Use in the book
The Preface answers Morellet’s objection that finite grief is one of life’s benefits. Chateaubriand accepts that it would be false to call this limitation a great infortune, yet calls it evidence of sterility and indigence (pp. 6–72). The debate is not whether relief ever helps, but what the need and inability to sustain feeling disclose about human being. The supplied editor compares this vocabulary with Pascal; that comparison is commentary, while the distinction itself is expressly authorial.
René begins by anticipating that his apparently self-made torments will seem miserable to men who have endured real sorrows (p. 142). Later he perversely wishes for a real misfortune to give his suffering an object (p. 167). The wish is followed by Amélie’s revelation, which he interprets as both rescue and punishment. Real pain now supplies satisfaction because it fills his days, yet he concludes that his heart is kneaded of ennui and misery (p. 183). An infortune does not abolish misère; his use of it may reveal that deeper condition.
The distinctions also expose a tension about duration. The Preface defends the claim that the finite heart cannot sustain grief indefinitely. René believes he has found a sorrow that cannot be exhausted like pleasure (p. 182). The latter is the character’s discovery at a particular moment, not a doctrine that supersedes the former. His investment in lasting grief can be read as another attempt to defeat inward limits.
Souël finally describes ‘secret misery’ as the initial punishment for leaving powers unused (p. 190). This makes wretchedness inseparable from a failure of service. Amélie’s care for others offers the narrative’s concrete counterexample, though her charity does not spare her illness and death: moral activity and exemption from misfortune are not the same thing.
Places to read
- Preface p. 6le cœur de l'homme est fini — Aubry’s quoted proposition grounds the controversy over grief and human limitation.
- Preface p. 7sa stérilité, de son indigence — The author’s explanation treats inability to sustain feeling as spiritual poverty.
- p. 167un objet réel de souffrance — René wishes that an event would supply the object his diffuse suffering lacks.
- p. 183pétri d'ennui et de misère — He recognizes inward poverty even when genuine grief keeps him occupied.
- p. 190une secrète misère — Souël locates a first penalty within the unused inward powers themselves.
Translation in this edition
The supplied translation distinguishes ‘misery’ from ‘misfortune’, following the author’s explicit argument. The Key Terms2’ reference to Pascal is an editorial orientation, not an identified quotation or a demonstrated exclusive source. The Preface discusses Atala here; applying its distinction to René is a supported cross-reading within the shared volume.