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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume I

Reading language

YEAR 1803

January 30.

Subtlety that is cunning, ambush, evasion (subtlety of procedure). The mind has some of it. As for natural subtlety, those who are sublime have it. One may even say: unless he is subtle, no one is sublime.

February 1.

If our mind were as clear-sighted as our eyes, and if we understood moral beauty as well as physical beauty, we would admire the ancients’ tragedies as much as we admire their statues. (See Journal des Débats, February 1, 1803.)

Body of doctrine is better still than system. With lines one makes a figure, and with words a system. But to make a true body one needs limbs, and to make a body of doctrine one needs a gathering of indisputable and concordant truths.

February 6.

Secrecy. That education consists both of what must be said and of what must be kept unsaid: of silences and instruction. Everywhere there are verenda, nefanda, silenda, tacenda, alto premenda silentio. The importance of secrecy in education, not in Fénelon’s sense, but in another.

On page 511 of volume II in quarto, it seems that Bossuet, citing St. Augustine, (epistle 51 ad Maced, de trinitate 13 passim,) is of the opinion that one can have an error in one’s opinion and a truth in the depths of oneself and of one’s feeling. Or rather “and the feeling of truth in the depths of oneself.”

February 7.

That: since this dispute turned on loves, however spiritual they might be, the word, caressing every ear, drew every attention.

Fénelon counted five of them.

And that Bossuet is always obliged to use the same words, but uses them in a more exact sense.

To work through etymology for meaning is very different from working through etymology for the historical account or the fact. The one is sound, the other is not. (Much to reflect on in this thought.)

(Formam habentes sanorum verborum—conforming ourselves to sound words.)

The world, or ornament, arrangement, order, the beautiful.—Not the beautiful: they placed it higher; but the pretty, the pleasing. The work, and the manner. The adorned dwelling, under the canopy, on the parquet and the carpet, by torchlight, night and day. Surrounded by goods and magnificent spectacles.

Of unheard-of language—and suited to deceiving those who speak it as well as those who hear it.—They pay our mind with figures. Their doctrine is in assignats. Indeed, they give us a claim to draw truth from a fund that does not exist. Law’s notes were called system papers. These books with serious systems are only bank paper.

Those of Mr. de S[aint] P[ierre] may be of this kind, but they are worth something for their images. Style gives them value. They are like those papers on which there is a beautiful print, a beautiful drawing, a beautiful sketch. We keep them and we look at them. They will always matter.

Those heavy minds that hamper us with their weights and their immobility. One cannot make them fly or swim. For they do not know how to help themselves, they press close upon you, they drag you along.

Minds that like to make the bird’s maneuvers, to rise, to hover, and to stray, to cleave the air so as to return to a fixed point, a solid and precise point.

February […].

Strongly muscled style, or strongly molded style.

In these matters there is a point behind which it is no longer possible to retreat in the advance of languages.

T49.Subtlety of procedure is distinguished from natural subtlety. The French retains its anomalous Quand à; the English gives its contextual force, As for, without treating it as a time clause.

T50.The comparison joins clarity of mind with eyesight, and tragedies with statues. The newspaper reference continues onto p. 360 as part of the same paragraph; it does not begin another entry.

T51.The italicized terms are being compared as well as the things they name. Body and limbs preserve the organic contrast with a figure made of lines and a system made of words.

T52.The Latin terms remain in Joubert’s sequence. Verenda can denote things approached with reverence or reserve and, substantivally, the private parts. Nefanda are things not to be uttered; silenda and tacenda, things to be kept unspoken; alto premenda silentio, things to be buried in deep silence. The English does not settle the precise scope of verenda or invent the alternative sense of secrecy left unspecified at the end.

T53.The first formulation and Or rather are both retained. The printed references remain abbreviated: ad Maced points toward an addressee, de trinitate names On the Trinity, and passim means throughout. Their printed numbering is not silently replaced with a reconstructed edition reference.

T54.Loves remains plural and the following paragraph keeps five of them without a supplied list. Caressing every ear preserves the sensual metaphor even in a discussion of spiritual loves. The source’s quelques is read in the concessive sense, however.

T55.For meaning is distinguished from for the historical account or the fact. Sound keeps sain available for the sound words in the following paragraph; the English does not turn the note into an endorsement of all etymological explanation.

T56.The Latin means having the form or pattern of sound words. The words after the dash are a translation of Joubert’s French gloss, conforming ourselves to sound words; its difference from a literal rendering of the Latin remains visible.

T57.Joubert corrects beautiful to pretty and pleasing within his own text. They remains unnamed. Canopy renders pavillon in the furnished dwelling; parquet, carpet, torchlight, goods, and spectacles retain the concrete surroundings.

T58.Assignats were revolutionary French currency secured on confiscated land. The financial terms—pay, figures, claim, fund, notes, and bank paper—are retained through the comparison. Joubert’s reference to Law is left as printed, without supplying a bank, scheme, or publication date.

T59.The source editor’s partial name expansions S[aint] P[ierre] remain. Crayon denotes a drawn work in this sequence of images and is rendered sketch. Keep and look preserve the garde/regarde pairing.

T60.The plural weights follows the source, and the physical actions continue through flying, swimming, pressing close, and dragging. The next paragraph retains the bird’s free motion and return to a fixed point.