Diotimos Reading Desk

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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume I

Reading language

YEAR 1804

Whether clarity must be sudden... How one can make people wait for it.

February […].

When what I write gives me less pleasure than what I think.

These thoughts serve as a foundation not only for my work, but for my life.

(In the bath.) Those are very beautiful phantoms of thoughts.

February […].

(post 19 annos, scilicet a martio 1785 in prgᵈ) for Mʳ Sʳᵈ. [Suard.]

— he sculpted neither ideal nature nor apparent nature, but real nature, and as one could touch it, seeking the slightest reliefs and the slightest recesses, etc. A vein, a muscle, a wrinkle, a wart, a smallpox spot offered him so many elevations, recesses, cavities, etc. that it was important to indicate, not knowing that all this is seen with a degree of attention struck only by the whole, etc. — and offering an anatomy in what should have been a picture.

Nota. To try to make a blind man, a sculptor.

In 1783. The work in which I had been engaged by Diderot should have been reduced to this point: vistas for the mind, and whether it can be content without them; whether the same breadth that makes it capable of conceiving a great idea does not make the desire for boundless glory inevitable for it; finally, whether “vast thoughts” and “long hope” are not naturally, indissolubly bound together. Etc.

In 1779. “Universal benevolence.” The substance was lacking. One would have had to determine “what its bounds should be” and observe that he had not had time to determine anything, halted at the decisive point of so high an operation. Etc. There, as I have said, the material was lacking; and I did not know how to see it.

In 1785. Too full of my enchantment, I confined myself to painting it. (It was thus that in verse, after opening a way for myself into true poetry, I could no longer be content with the common kind; and, too new to the other, I left them both.

Questions I. Whether it is necessary, whether it is useful for all peoples to be mingled and to have a uniform fate. Or whether separation between brothers is worth more than shared misfortune. — II. Of the two worlds (the ancient and the modern), the first perhaps better bounded for the capacity of the mind of man, just as too wide a horizon entirely destroys the usefulness and pleasure that perspective can give. To confine oneself, etc.

Whether the plan should be established through tones and images, or through the thoughts and maxims proper to the subject and which are its fixed points within it. Does the mind (in this case) partake more of the nature of the ear and eye than of that of the whole body, of the whole man? Finally, should one begin with the towers (turres) or with the ground and paving stones? A great question!

How many pains one must take to avoid writing like those who write badly. Those people harm good taste even through the profound displeasure they inspire in it, which serves to engrave in it the impressions it receives from them. It is thus that a contagion leaves traces of itself by hollowing out the parts it painfully affects. It spoils at least the surfaces, if it does not alter the substance. One must congratulate those who have a null style when they cannot have a beautiful style. No middle ground! They do no harm and may even do good by saying sensible things that they recall to memory and preserve in the world, if they do not introduce them into it. To preserve! is a great benefit, and without it the benefit of creating would not last long.

February 15.

Montaigne’s travels. And how far he himself was from a certain exaltation that makes one relish the arts.

February 16.

To paint and gild ideas. Advantages, disadvantages.

Good, if the life of man were to be only an affection; but it must be action. There is, in truth, an age (and perhaps two) when...

February 19.

The morality of man insufficient to regulate pleasures; religious morality insufficient to regulate manners. The doctrine of politeness is therefore necessary, like that of piety. Honor also has its own.

February 20.

Fever. In the marshes of reason.

T193.Si is read as an open inquiry into whether clarity must be sudden. The next fragment considers causing a wait for it; the English makes that implied waiting party general rather than naming a specific reader.

T438.The day is obscured at the left fold and is not inferred.

T194.The Latin begins after 19 years, namely from March 1785. Its final in prgᵈ is not securely expanded. Mʳ Sʳᵈ and Beaunier’s supplied [Suard.] remain in the body. The retrospective years 1783, 1779 and 1785 later in this block do not replace its damaged February date.

T195.The unnamed he remains unnamed. Real nature is conceived as touchable, with reliefs and recesses; the paragraph nevertheless speaks of an attention struck only by the whole. That difficult contrast is not reversed. The French plural telles after singular nature cannot be marked naturally in English as one could touch it.

T196.The comma in un aveugle, sculpteur is retained. The fragment can suggest making a blind man a sculptor or composing the figure of a blind sculptor; the English does not supply a named example or settle the proposed experiment.

T197.Perspectives is rendered as vistas, keeping the breadth, distance and prospect of glory in view. The first-person I had been engaged by Diderot follows j’avois; the work is not attributed to a third person. The quoted phrases remain quotations without a supplied title.

S1.Source editor’s annotationHere, a series of notes of little importance relating to Seneca.

T198.Fonds is read as substance, with the later matière rendered as material. The source changes from impersonal Il auroit fallu to qu’il n’avoit, then prints feminine arrêtée without a secure antecedent. The English retains he and leaves halted unattached to a newly supplied noun.

T199.This is Beaunier’s report of notes he does not reproduce here, not a gap to fill by inventing or importing Seneca excerpts. His judgment of their limited importance remains in the separate source apparatus.

T200.The common kind renders la vulgaire without implying obscenity. The other refers back to true poetry; both are abandoned. The opening parenthesis remains unclosed because the source does not close it.

T201.Both numbered questions remain inside one paragraph. The two worlds are expressly ancient and modern; they are not converted into geographic continents. Perhaps retains the uncertainty about the ancient world’s bounds.

T202.Sentences is rendered as maxims, not grammatical sentences alone. The compressed fixed points within it preserves the source’s en sont en lui. The Latin turres identifies towers, preventing tours from being read simply as turns of phrase; the building image continues with ground and paving stones.

T441.The initial Si remains without a completed governing clause. The compressed en sont en lui remains as printed. The clipped right-edge endings of les, l’oreille and pavés are contextually restored from surviving letters.

T203.Null renders nul as lacking distinctive effect, in the contrast between harmful bad writing and writing that at least preserves sensible things. The unusual exclamation within To preserve! is retained. The contagion’s hollowing of painful surfaces remains a physical image, not a claim about a particular disease.

T204.Affection retains the broad sense of being affected or a state of feeling, in contrast with action; it is not narrowed to fondness for another person. The possible one or two ages remain unidentified, and the final when clause is unfinished.

T443.The final relative clause remains unfinished. The source’s peut être is unhyphenated.

T205.The opening two clauses remain without a supplied verb. Religious morality is compared with the morality of man; honor’s own doctrine is not equated with either politeness or piety.

T206.Fever remains a separate word before the spatial image. The English does not diagnose a specific illness or turn the marshes into a settled account of irrationality.