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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume I

Reading language

[ON KANT.]

December […]9.

One must put the buskin on misfortune; and shoes or clogs on the ridiculous.

December 10.

Either the principle of life or that of reason. From the one come our pleasures, but happiness comes to us from the other.

December 11.

Death of Caesar. — Wants ... a state that can be called by the name of liberty. It is therefore for this abstract thing. ... It is therefore the word that made the tragedy.

King. They never wanted this title. It is a slander from the outskirts. They wanted more, supreme authority, and they enjoyed it.

December 13.

The kinglet. What has he given him? — He has made him content.

The lyceums have been called “literary inns.” The phrase is excellent.

O. N., I am fit to sow, but not to build and to found.

December 14.

It is not with the productions of the mind as with... It conceives with pain and gives birth with delight.

These disdains, these disgusts, these censures that can be well expressed only through barbarisms. And note, 2nd, that one often makes words only because one does not know all those in the language one speaks.

And this remainder of life, useless for action, is given for repentance. — And it is then because it is better for them to die than to live...

December 15.

In all these religions, the idol was only the body of the god. Thus we are wrong, etc.

December 16.

How, when many men have written well, the pleasure of writing diminishes.

T161.Buskin renders cothurne, the boot associated with tragic performance. The act of putting footwear on misfortune and the ridiculous remains, rather than being paraphrased as choosing tragic or comic styles.

T326.The left edge clips the day; the surviving numeral fragment is retained without reconstructing a complete date.

T162.Wants leaves Veut without a supplied subject. State keeps état open between condition and political state. The separate period and ellipsis remain.

T163.The plural they is not replaced by Caesar or another named ruler. Outskirts renders faux-bourg as the peripheral district rather than modern suburban life; the contempt in the slander remains.

S2.Source editor’s annotation“From the 12th to the 13th dim. noct. somn. quasi a Deo immissum — quod utinam prosit!”

T164.Kinglet retains the diminutive of king and the bird-name sense of roitelet without identifying a species. French il marks the giver as masculine; lui and l’ do not independently mark the recipient’s gender. English him follows the masculine roitelet. The entry does not explicitly name the giver.

T165.From the 12th to the 13th translates Du 12 au 13. The remaining abbreviations and Latin are retained. Dim. is the French Sunday abbreviation; noct. and somn. point to night and dream. Quasi a Deo immissum means as if sent by God; quod utinam prosit expresses the wish may it be of benefit.

T166.Lyceums retains lycées without turning the reference into modern secondary schools. Literary inns preserves the lodging metaphor.

T167.O. N. remains unexpanded. Sowing remains distinct from building and founding; no object such as books or systems is supplied.

T168.It refers to the mind. Conceiving in pain and giving birth in delight are retained in that order; the unfinished comparison is not completed.

T169.Barbarisms refers here to forms foreign to accepted linguistic usage. The explicit 2nd is retained without inserting a numbered first item.

T170.Diminishes gives the verb’s contextual sense. The French retains diminuè with its apparent grave-like mark in the facsimile; the exact diacritic remains uncertain, and it is not silently normalized.