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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume I

Reading language

[On Voltaire.]

Attentions “with a narrow mouth.” What one says must be poured into them carefully and, so to speak, drop by drop.

The ancients had noticed “prolixity in Euripides, unevenness in Sophocles.” But they would not have allowed themselves to reproach them with it, regarding the faults of great writers as, in a sense, an accident rather than a defect. Their books are beautiful volumes with only water stains in them.

October 2.

One needs to be kept within the good by the force not only of one’s own opinion but also of others’ opinion. If fear of censure does not push us back into it when our passions have made us leave it, we shall live outside justice, or at least outside propriety.

“Speech is the good of hearing” (says Plutarch), as light is the good of our eyes. And Nota. the good of touch (women). The good of taste (or of the throat’s sense of touch): is it the liquid or the solid, or the food that is mother to both? The good of smell: incense in the temples of the gods....

Sophistry—or—appearance (the ancients said); that is, all the show or demonstration.—The sophist, then, is one who has knowledge, wit, opinions, a doctrine only to display them and make a parade of them. It is pride that makes the sophist; good faith makes the scholar.

(Sophisticated also means disguised, adorned, painted and, as we say, adulterated.)

Sunday, October 2, inter uvas.

But it is the metaphysical or spiritual idea or notion that truly holds truth within the soul and keeps it from being able to leave—because, itself perfectly suited to the soul’s nature, it becomes as it were inseparable from the soul as soon as it has united with it.

The worst fault of an image is to be obscure.

October […].

Those quotations on which one can build, from which one sets out to go farther, which one makes into fixed points to place where there are none. They gave their minds such great ease.

We conceive of song as something celestial, but not dance: it is wholly lower. Moreover, its very movement is sad unless it accompanies song and marks its cadences.

Goods such that, to be happy through them, it is not necessary to possess them; it is enough to love them.

Indeed, there would be no errors if there were no opinions. But there would still be a truth, for it is in things independently of thoughts.

October […].

The dog’s alliance. A dog on whose head one places a hand believes it is sure of being protected, or at least tolerated. This sign seems to it a commitment.

T234.The plural attentions is retained as a countable image of receptacles. Embouchure gives them a mouth into which speech must be poured drop by drop.

S3.Source editor’s annotation“Vid. pag. 224,” probably of one of the volumes of the translation.

T235.The source’s singular la after plural inégalités is carried by the collective it in English. Water stains preserves the material image applied to the books, rather than replacing it with a general reference to minor blemishes. The distinction between an accident and a defect is retained.

S4.Source editor’s annotationNotebook.

S5.Source editor’s annotationThere follow a few extracts from Plutarch’s Morals, Amyot’s translation.

T236.Good translates the repeated bien as what fulfills or benefits each sense. The unusual food that is mother to both retains l’aliment mère des deux; the source does not further explain the relation between liquid, solid, and their mother. Nota. means Note.

T237.Monstre is the older spelling of montre, show or display, not a monster. The next paragraph uses sophistiqué in the senses of disguised and adulterated, rather than the modern approving sense of cultivated sophistication. Painted preserves fardé, the application of cosmetic color.

T238.The feminine pronouns can move among idea or notion, truth, and soul. The English names the soul where en and y refer back to it, but leaves itself open between the idea and truth. Inter uvas, printed on the date line, means among the grapes and remains a circumstance, not an added title.

T485.The initial D of Dimanche and several damaged line openings are restored from surviving letters. The Latin inter uvas is a circumstance printed on the date line, not an additional title or a second date.

S1.Source editor’s annotationBefore this: “Monday, October 3. Journey to Sens. Bossuet purchased, 12 quarto volumes, Boudet, etc. Ch l-mbrt models.” Then: on the 5th, “at Ervauville.” On the 6th: “Courtenay and return.”

T239.The building and journey images are both retained. Their minds has no named owners in this entry; none are supplied. The final imperfect describes the ease or resources quotations gave them.

T244.The quoted travel dates belong to Beaunier’s apparatus and do not fill the damaged day of the main entry. Quarto renders in 4°. The consonantal Ch l-mbrt and the following models remain unexpanded; the record does not establish their referent here.

T486.The day is too damaged to certify; no numeral is inferred. Clipped line openings are restored from surviving fragments.

T487.The consonantal form Ch l-mbrt is retained without expansion; the slender first sign in l-mbrt is read as lowercase l, not securely as a numeral. The quoted travel dates do not supply the damaged main day. The clipped opening of 12 and the line-divided Ervauville are restored from surviving letters.

T240.Wholly lower preserves the relation of inférieure to the celestial, rather than reducing it to a judgment about artistic quality. The movement’s sadness is retained as stated; cadence is not replaced by a particular dance rhythm.

T241.Goods retains the broader sense of things that are good or beneficial. Joubert’s distinction between loving and possessing them is not narrowed to ownership of material property.