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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume I

Reading language

[On Voltaire.]

April […]8.

A scrupulous journalist must find his article in the book he is examining. Let him look for it there. If it is not there, it ought to be nowhere.

April 21.

I beat out the anapest uu—, the iamb u—, and even the double iamb u—u—, the first paeon — uuu (as in diligere), the ...tile — uu, and never the spondee.

Spondaic prose.

May 1.

Flowers in cemeteries. One ought to uproot them; this earth disfigures them.—And [they] make the skeletons smile. Horrible charms.

All these theories in which there is nothing for morality are plainly incomplete, since that is missing from them. Their uselessness is the sign of their imperfection. But when they are no more than paths ending at precipices, it is clear that one has taken the wrong way. Do you want to know..., see where it leads. Sometimes, however, the right road seems to have led nowhere, but that is because one has not yet arrived and is crossing the desert. One must go to the end. But when the end is a marsh, a chasm, an abyss, a cesspool, and you see nothing beyond it, make haste, retrace your steps; do not remain where their mind has sunk in the mud.

May 4.

Pleasures without pain, in literature. And pains (attentions, reflections, conventions, etc.) that give extreme pleasures.

May 4.

[?] must neither spread out nor rise. There is no one for whom it would be more useful and more fitting to keep, as they say, within his shell. He could spin a little silk there. In speaking this way I do not mean to disparage him, only to characterize him. To be an eagle or a caterpillar in the intellectual world seems to me much the same. What matters is to have a marked place there, an assigned rank, and to belong distinctly to a regular and innocent species. Only sacred books obtain an extensive and lasting empire. All the others merely occupy, more or less seriously, the idle moments of a few idlers: they do men no other good than to accustom them to pleasures that come neither from the flesh nor from money. To make men spiritual, or to give them a taste for things of the mind, seems to me the only fruit their nature has attached to our literary productions. When these have other effects, it is by chance, and so much the worse. Books that take such possession of our mind that they give us a distaste for all others are pernicious. They introduce into society only peculiarities and sects. They introduce a greater variety of weights, rules, measures. They trouble morality and politics there. We must let the bibles reign and aspire only to please, not to dominate. But we must aspire to please the best part of the soul. And in this respect a small talent, if it keeps within its bounds and fulfills its task, can reach the goal as a greater one can.

His head is a dark chamber in which there is light. Through his two eyes a few rays enter and paint some objects there fairly well in miniature. But the canvas that receives them, instead of remaining at rest, wants to enlarge itself and makes these pictures grimace. I assure you there is something active there that ought to remain passive.

His best thoughts do not seem to me to have occupied more space in his mind than they occupy on his paper; and even on the paper each space does not seem to me larger than its contents... I seem to see those wax figures displayed at wigmakers’ doors in boxes that touch them on all sides.—In the ideas I see only points of light at the center and darkness around them. I have found nothing resonant there, nothing that has rolled at ease and freely in a space larger than itself.

He has habits of good style, but no system of it, not even an idea of it.

To write grammatically is sometimes enough to write very well. Some write, so to speak, in pencil. They are content to draw, and those writers need no colors.

This little work deserved what, in the jargon of my time, was called a succès d’estime. But it can give real pleasure only to those who will not love it, that is to say, those who will feel the merit the world has failed to perceive in it. This world seems to me like that great lanky fellow of a viscount who spat into a well to make circles. For its reading it needs little space, some brilliance and some clarity, the appearance of figures and the chance to toss a few words into a circle and stir it up. Besides, it is ignorant and all facts amuse it. It is frivolous and consequently satisfied when it has managed to read a serious book without boredom, for then it has a good opinion of itself. It finds simple what has uniformity. What excuses the world in this is that the work has scarcely anything but imperceptible faults.

May […].

An idea, and even a feeling, must always seem to emerge from the bosom, the depths and, as it were, the entrails of several others.

An obscurity behind troubles my mind as much as an obscurity ahead.

Chateaubriand. We inhabit the same regions, but we do not bring back the same curiosities.

To know how to walk in darkness, yes, when one is going toward action; but when one wishes to go only toward the light and show it everywhere...

That is to say the thing, but not to say the thought of it.

To dream of the beautiful. I will have dreamed of the beautiful, as they say they dream of happiness; but mine was a better dream, for death itself and the sight of it do not disturb its continuity and, on the contrary, give it greater breadth. This dream that mingles with all waking hours and all states of composure, and gains strength from all reflections, no absence, no loss can interrupt irreparably.

T338.The first day digit is largely obscured and is not certified; only 8 is retained. Several clipped initial letters are restored from surviving fragments.

T190.The u-shaped short signs and long strokes are preserved in order. Paeon is the current English metrical term for pœan. The source’s l’...tile remains incomplete; its following long-short-short pattern suggests dactyle, but the English leaves ...tile visible instead of supplying that word. Diligere remains Latin; it means to love or esteem.

T191.The source’s font is a finite plural verb with no expressed subject. English supplies [they] to distinguish the statement from an imperative; flowers is the contextual antecedent. These English brackets mark a translator’s grammatical intervention, not words supplied by Beaunier. The French sentence is not reversed: the cemetery earth disfigures the flowers. Horrible charms keeps the troubling combination of attraction and horror.

T192.The route must be followed far enough to distinguish an unfinished journey from a dead end. Marsh, chasm, abyss and cesspool retain the cumulative list; the image ends in mud rather than an abstract error. The personal singular address is retained.

T193.Peine moves between pain and effort. Pains keeps that range and the repeated word; the parenthetical attentions, reflections and conventions shows that some of the pains are intellectual work. Conventions is printed and is not emended to convictions.

S1.Source editor’s annotationSeparate leaf. (Raynal assigns it to 1809). I do not know who is meant.

T194.The source’s [?] and Beaunier’s acknowledgment that he cannot identify the person remain. He could spin silk continues the movement from shell to caterpillar; the later eagle is not made part of a consistent zoological scheme. The English treats printed fut contextually as would be; it does not recast the whole passage in past time.

T195.Spirituels is rendered spiritual alongside the explicit things of the mind, retaining the passage’s intellectual and religious range. The plural lowercase bibles is printed and preserved. Their nature is left open between the men being affected and the literary productions. Its task follows the clear contextual sense of the printed se tasche, retained in French.

T201.Raynal’s assignment of the separate leaf to 1809 is reported by Beaunier. The leaf remains where Beaunier prints it, under May 4 within the 1803 section. Neither the disputed year nor an identity is substituted in the main text.

T343.The source opening [?] is retained; the person is unidentified. The facsimile reads fut without a clearly separable circumflex and clearly prints se tasche, not sa tasche; both remain. Source spellings Etre, soye, hazard, systhème, boëtes, and puis remain. Multiple clipped line ends on 380 and beginnings on 381 are restored from surviving fragments, including place, portes, centre, retentissant, and appelloit. The final paragraph’s un succès d’estime. is italic.

T196.The rays entering through the eyes and painting images give chambre obscure its optical, camera-obscura sense. Dark chamber keeps the literal image and the paradox of light within it. The canvas itself wants to enlarge and makes the pictures grimace; this animation is not reduced to a neutral account of distortion.

T197.The thoughts occupy no more space in the mind than on paper, and even their paper spaces are no larger than their contents. The wax figures’ tight boxes, the dark surrounds, and the absence of room to roll retain the sequence of spatial images. Resonant keeps the further auditory sense of retentissant.

T198.The spelling systhème is retained in French; system is its ordinary English equivalent. Both the absence of a system of good style and the absence even of an idea of it remain.

T199.Succès d’estime remains French: a reception based on esteem. The paradox that the work can please those who will not love it is retained. It refers back to the little work; the later repeated it refers to the social world, personified as ignorant, frivolous and self-satisfied.

T200.The circles in the well lead to a social circle stirred by a few words. The spelling puis is read as well in context and retained in French. The last sentence keeps the awkwardly pointed excuse: the work has scarcely anything but imperceptible faults.

S1.Source editor’s annotationNotebook.

T1.Bosom, depths, and entrails retain the successive inward and bodily images. Several others applies to the preceding idea and feeling without supplying a single faculty from which they must arise.

T2.Curiosities preserves the things brought back from the same regions, rather than turning the noun into an abstract desire to know. The geographical comparison remains unexplained.

T3.The infinitive and the final unfinished contrast remain. Going toward action is distinguished from going toward light; the English supplies no conclusion about which should prevail.

T4.The future perfect I will have dreamed remains distinct from the subsequent past mine was. Waking hours and states of composure render the plural veilles and sangfroids. The dream gains breadth from death and its contemplation; this claim is not reduced to a dream interrupted and later resumed.