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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume I

Reading language

Watelet: Poem on Painting.

October […].

Two things can never be the object of a single thought at the same time unless some symmetry unites them or makes the two one.

Symmetry. Or correspondence. A secret bond, etc. Through it a middle forms (at the point of contact), a middle, I say, from which one perceives the extremities.

To exalt oneself. To rise as far as one’s ceiling and strike its beams with one’s forehead is to waste one’s strength and trouble. But to strive to rise to heaven is a wise attempt: the upward impulse alone is a success.

October […]1.

The mind of men is perpetually afflicted by a disease called the love of independence; and the mind of peoples by a fairly similar disease: the mania for liberty.

Marmontel’s opinion on “the cause of misfortune placed outside us, as in ancient tragedy, or within us,” as in modern tragedy.

The former must arouse more pity. It is through it that the maxim Res sacra miser is true, since misfortune comes from heaven.

October […]9.

Indeed, music, like poetry, was religious in its beginnings and was at first employed only to moderate the passions.

Morals necessary to song... Continence, to beauty. Sensuous pleasure perishes through debauchery.

November […].

My memory now preserves only the essence of what I read, what I see, and even what I think.

Faith keeps a man from giving his mind over to many useless concerns. It turns him away from attempting what is impossible.

Of the passions that nature gives men in sufficient measure and that books should tend to repress; and first of all, of pride or haughtiness, which can make them ungovernable.

September 9 (sic)

Mr. Necker. Teaches nothing; but his whys are remarkable and very instructive.

Republic, philosophy. Too much respect for these great words,—these celebrated words, to use his expression.

November 2.

The bosom. This new ornament makes those who wear it and are not accustomed to it blush.

November 3.

Str-n-s-cch- often sings in the voice one speaks with.

November 4.

Tradition. Works that have stood the test of memory.

T272.The final une seule is read as one thing, continuing the two things with which the sentence begins. English makes the two one preserves this union without suggesting that only one is selected.

T535.The left margin damages the day label; no missing numeral is inferred. Initial letters damaged at the left edge are restored from the surviving word fragments.

T273.Plancher here is the overhead floor or ceiling with beams that can be struck by the forehead. The upward impulse renders élan while keeping the physical ascent and its spiritual reach.

T536.The left margin damages the day label; no missing numeral is inferred. The terminal 1 is visible; any preceding numeral remains lost.

T274.Res sacra miser means an unfortunate person is a sacred thing. The Latin remains in Joubert’s text; its relation to pity and misfortune coming from heaven is not converted into an added theological explanation.

T537.The left margin damages the day label; no missing numeral is inferred. The visible 9 is retained without assuming that it is the complete day.

T275.Mœurs can cover morals and habits of conduct. The missing verb after Continence parallels the preceding necessary. Volupté is sensuous pleasure, which remains distinct from débauche, debauchery.

T538.The left margin damages the day label; no missing numeral is inferred.

S1.Source editor’s annotation“September 9, Thursday, 1802. That fool Mr. de Lauragais saw very well himself (while believing he was speaking after Locke) that in fact ‘the character of truth (which is light) was found only in moral things that exist only in our mind or in our conscience [etc...]’ (Page 140 of his letters, etc.) He had said earlier (page 130: ‘Locke seems to me to have been tempted [etc...].’

T276.Apprend is read as teaches in this note on a writer, supported by the contrast with his instructive whys. The context favors this reading, although apprend can also mean learns.

T284.The historical abbreviation 7bre means September and is expanded in English. The quotation’s date remains in the source apparatus. Choses morales may include mental or inward objects as well as ethical ones; conscience may mean consciousness or conscience. The quoted light metaphor and both bracketed omissions remain intact. The source’s unclosed parenthesis after page 130 and its unclosed outer quotation are not silently closed in English.

T277.The bosom remains a new ornament that its bearers wear. The English preserves this figure rather than substituting a description of bodily development.

T278.The printed abbreviated name remains unexpanded. The handwritten gloss visible below it in the scan is not incorporated as printed authorial or editorial text.

T541.The abbreviated name Str-n-s-cch- is confirmed in the native image; the later handwritten expansion below the printed line is not transcribed as author text.