He is right; among heavily clothed peoples, the word beauty can scarcely mean, as he says, anything but “the best conformation of the head, arm, and foot.” (Page 98.)
“True poetry... contributes, like sculpture and painting, to preserving simple and primitive ideas.” And on this subject let us observe that a poem must contain not only a poetry of images but also a poetry of ideas.
It is not true that old age is necessarily devoid of graces. It can have them in glances, in language, the smile, etc. “Unity of action and frankness,” required to produce grace (according to the author), can be found at any age (whatever he may say) between the mind and words, between our soul and our manners. (See page 102.)
It is possible that colors are not the same for all eyes, but the relations of one color to another, their opposition or harmony, make themselves uniformly felt by everyone. What is musical and mathematical in them is invariable and indestructible. (On this subject, see page 116.)
“In fright...” Everything described of it is admirably expressed in Raphael’s figure holding the possessed person. See his painting of the Transfiguration.
Indefinite features characterize childhood. Where they are absent, there are no children, but little men.
September 20.
...not that one must regard these pleasures as a crime; but one must consider abstaining from them a duty.
September 16.
The remark: “I did not speak to Mme de Staël about her children; I feared she would take me for a gossip.”
Voltaire. “Has almost never been amusing except when speaking of serious things. His gaiety is only the gaiety of parody.” (Débats, 15-)
October 3.
A living body mingled with light. An indefinable colored something that is not body.
October 5.
...of those books through which it is so pleasant to hear it proved to one that one is right.
October 6. .
Racine. He did not have an impetuous genius.
Literature, or morality embellished.
October 12
The remark: “One dies because one has lived.”
October 15.
Political constitutions need elasticity; and this elasticity they lose when everything in them is regulated by fixed and, so to speak, inflexible laws.
Minds:—terrestrial (quadruped, biped, crawling); aquatic (muddy, of clear water, of pond water); winged (with great flights and a small flight.)—Crawling, hopping.
October […].
Voltaire. “He had (Marivaux used to say of him) the perfection of common ideas.” But what if common ideas are the best?
October […].
Fidelity to the customs (and even to the religion) of one’s fathers: “a virtue of society.”
Clothing: “of an indecent simplicity.”
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The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume I · Book Mode · Diotimos