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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume I

Reading language

[On Voltaire.]

July 13.

Of communications with God, or with men, or with things.

July 15.

An idea of peace as well as of intelligence mingles with that of study, making it respected and almost envied as a state of happiness even by uncultivated men. But an idea of austerity mingles with the sight of piety, making it feared and ridiculed by those whose minds are as corrupt as their lives.

July 16.

“In the contemplation of the beautiful (says Mr. M[ol]é) and in the production of the good.” And indeed, do we not say to do good? But we say it as if speaking of a work and not as if speaking of a child. Nevertheless etc. and by thus considering the good as a sort of being, we make it strike the mind more forcibly, and the expression is good.

July 18.

“He was (said the vine grower) a strong and spacious man.” Note this expression, a spacious man.

July 22.

Voltaire. In reading him, it is impossible not to dye oneself with vermilion.

July […]4.

An infinity of competitors takes away emulation.

July […].

And those who have denied their minds serious thoughts fall into dark ideas.

Maturity of age and its happiness.

...[They] do not know the secrets of the body.

— Spent in enjoying them the time we spend describing and defining them.

— I know not what character of a judger. And we want to judge.

July […]5.

We propose nothing to ourselves as a duty, and everything as a mere convenience.

July […]6.

“The work of the muses (said the ancients) is to calm, moderate, and regulate the passions” (by exercising them). The moderns, on the contrary, aim at no effect other than to excite them.

July […]8.

Religion, which makes philosophy unnecessary.

Plutarch. He is the Herodotus of philosophy. (In his morals.)

Sunday, July 31.

And why should the soul not contain “the body in its midst,” as the ancients said of the soul of the world. The body is only the place of its action, and as the musician embraces the harpsichord he uses...

S1.Source editor’s annotation“Wednesday, July 13. Departure from Paris for Villeneuve sur Yonne. Same day, at Melun. Thursday the 14th, at Moret. Friday the 15th, arrival.”

T63.The opening Of preserves the form of a subject for reflection. Communications retains the repeated relation to God, men, and things without narrowing all three to spoken exchanges.

S2.Source editor’s annotation“July 15, morning. (V-ll-n-v-la gx-r-).” Then: “July 15, after Villeneuve. — Thursday, July 14, 1803: balm that comes from the wound (Chateaubriand). Ibid. Melun. St Aspect in the morning. Sacr-f-c. of the morning etc. The 15th at Villeneuve la grecare.”

T64.The first it refers to study and the second to piety. Happiness renders félicité without limiting it to heavenly blessedness; the contrast is between the peace attributed to study and the austerity perceived in piety.

T65.V-ll-n-v-la gx-r-, St Aspect, and Sacr-f-c. are retained without expansion. The final grecare is a provisional reading of the facsimile, and its spelling and meaning remain unresolved. The place phrase containing it is therefore kept in French. The different dates belong to the source annotation and do not supply or rearrange entry dates.

T323.The enlarged facsimile confirms the opaque abbreviations V-ll-n-v-la gx-r- and Sacr-f-c.; they remain unexpanded. St Aspect is retained without an invented saint’s name. The final grecare is an uncertain reading of the printed word; its sense and spelling remain unresolved. The itinerary’s dates are not used to reorder the main entries.

T66.The English idiom to do good cannot reproduce all the possibilities of faire, which can mean to make as well as to do. The surrounding production, work, child, and being preserve the comparison between creating an object and bringing a living being into existence. The incomplete Nevertheless etc. remains. The brackets in M[ol]é belong to the source edition.

T67.Spacious is deliberately retained: Joubert draws attention to the vine grower’s unusual adjective and repeats it.

T68.The literal dyeing image remains. The translation does not decide whether the color is chiefly cosmetic, stylistic, or a sign of shame.

T69.Emulation has its older sense of the desire to equal or surpass another in something worthy, as in the Académie’s 1798 definition. Mere copying would miss the competitive impulse that an excess of competitors suppresses.

T325.The left edge damages the day numeral. Only the surviving fragment is transcribed; no missing leading digit or complete date is inferred. The surviving terminal numeral is read, with uncertainty, as 4; its left portion is lost.

S1.Source editor’s annotationSeparate leaf, dated.

T70.Serious translates graves; dark translates sombres. The movement from avoiding serious thought to falling into gloom is preserved without making the two adjectives synonymous.

T71.The supplied [They] marks the missing subject of the finite plural Ignorent and prevents it from sounding like an instruction to ignore something. The following Spent remains a past-tense fragment with an unnamed subject and unresolved them. Judger preserves the unusual, critical noun jugeur instead of turning it into an official or judicial title. These remain separate paragraphs under the source’s shared date.

S2.Source editor’s annotationNotebook.

T72.Convenience renders convenance as something considered fitting or expedient, in contrast with binding duty; it is not restricted to physical ease.

T327.The left edge damages the day numeral. Only the surviving fragment is transcribed; no missing leading digit or complete date is inferred.

T328.The left edge damages the day numeral. Only the surviving fragment is transcribed; no missing leading digit or complete date is inferred. Clipped initial modérer and au are restored from their surviving word fragments.

T73.The relative clause remains a fragment. Unnecessary renders inutile in the context of religion making philosophy dispensable, without adding a statement that philosophy is intrinsically worthless.

T329.The left edge damages the day numeral. Only the surviving fragment is transcribed; no missing leading digit or complete date is inferred.

T74.Morals refers to the moral writings and follows the source’s lowercase morales. The parenthesis limits the comparison to those writings.

T75.The reversal of the usual containing image and the musician embracing his harpsichord are preserved. The source closes the question-like first sentence with a period and leaves the final comparison unfinished.