Diotimos Reading Desk

Tap the page, move to the top or bottom edge, swipe down, or press Tab to reveal reading controls. Use the arrow keys or swipe sideways to turn pages.

← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume I

Reading language

YEAR 1801

January 30.

This man too needs perspective. You bring him too close to your eye.

March […].

Tragedy. More difficult, yes, for the man of genius, but easier for the mediocre.

Admiration is a relief for attention, a stopping point it prescribes for its own pleasure and repose.

March […]1.

Ah! You have given yourself a cataract.

March […]6.

That vision takes place through the concurrence of two lights. — Add. March […]9: And if objects radiate toward us, we radiate toward objects.

O Religion! You give even imbeciles their virtues, their talents, and their usefulness.

March 17.

Not to confuse what is only a true thing with what is truth. To distinguish them carefully.

March 19.

Minds with substance, and so much of it that they cast only shadow, like bodies that are opaque.

March 21.

To wish to know invariably and fixedly what is only vague, and vaguely what is fixed and solid, is to tend toward knowing neither one nor the other.

March 22.

On books in which one finds everything, — and that one scarcely finds in a book anything but what one puts into it; but fine books are those in which the mind finds a place where it can put many things.

And what am I? Only an atom in a ray?

March 23.

Lines of verse by Ch[éni]er. Printing beautifies them.

S5.Source editor’s annotationThe leaf ends here. The February notebook has the 18th as its first date: “It is a light that burns! Spn that it illuminates etc.” 19: “Sublimity lying on the ground.” 26: “That superstition is a kind of over-religion etc.” 28: “To make their minds demanding.” And that is all for February.

T12.Spn remains unexpanded. Over-religion renders oultre-religion as an excessive or beyond-religion formation. Demanding renders difficile in the final reminder without adding an object of judgment.

T202.Spn is left unexpanded. The source dates and quoted February fragments remain apparatus, not new main-text entries. The clipped ending of couché is restored from the visible couch- and its sentence context.

T13.Attention is the antecedent of it in the English: it prescribes its own stopping point. Admiration may also carry the sense of wonder; no object of admiration is supplied.

T205.Only terminal day 1 is secure; a lost preceding numeral is not inferred.

T14.The Add. reminder and its damaged March date remain within the single body paragraph. The reciprocal radiation is stated as Joubert writes it.

T206.Only terminal 6 is secure in the opening date. The embedded Add. date loses its leading numeral at the left edge; only terminal 9 is retained. Initial l in les objets is restored at the damaged left edge.

T15.Imbeciles retains the source’s demeaning imbécilles rather than replacing it with a modern diagnostic category; the period word can denote weakness of mind or capacity.

T16.Substance renders étoffe, literally stuff or fabric, preserving the play between a mind’s resources and an opaque body’s density.

T17.The second question remains a question. Atom and ray retain the small particle in light without replacing it with an abstract claim of insignificance.

S1.Source editor’s annotationAfter this, March 24, mention of “Cudworth. Systhema intellectuale hujus universi. 2 vols. in folio,” which Joubert went to read at the Bibliothèque Mazarine. And likewise, “Copernicus, De revolutionibus.” He bought Kant, “4 vols. octavo 38.tt.” Then a torn-out leaf. Then, under the dates June 21 and July 12, various bibliographical mentions. And Joubert left most of the notebook blank, except for this on a page in the middle: “Mr. Eruzelin, justice of the peace, rue du Mont blanc, rue de Provence no. 4, no. 8, in Paris.” and an address for Médoc wine. Various purchases of books in February. This mention: “Attala, in Italian, at Delalain’s, rue Haute-feuille no. 14.”

T18.Printing renders impression in context. The source’s embêlit is read as beautifies, with its anomalous French spelling retained. Ch[éni]er preserves the source editor’s supplied internal letters.

T20.The titles, name Eruzelin, address sequence, Attala spelling, and unexpanded 38.tt. remain as printed. In-folio and octavo render the source’s book formats. Mention reads the annotation’s anomalous mentiop as its intended word. The reported bibliographical dates remain apparatus. Systhema intellectuale hujus universi means The intellectual system of this universe; De revolutionibus means On revolutions.

T209.Native crop confirms embêlit with circumflex in the main text and mentiop, final p, in this annotation; both are retained. The name’s initial letter is E-shaped in native detail; Eruzelin is retained as the printed reading without normalizing to an inferred name. The source’s Systhema, Attala, 38.tt., and bibliographic dates are preserved.