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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume I

Reading language

[Malebranche.]

November 23.

... that charm away pains, that make up for pleasures, that give them. Good for living and good for dying.

November 20.

... to thrill and rejoice in the light that they do not even perceive.

November 23.

“Dead affections to the dead (says L’Astrée), and living affections to the living.”

November 24.

— There one cannot err. Everything one thinks is true and (as Chateaubriand used to say) “even the bad in this genre is good.”

Amore viarum captus. Of the love of roads...

And — I believe I am in a tale — etc.

The smoke of raw meats. For they too have their smoke, like cooked meats. And one may say that, just as there is no fire, there is also no movement without smoke. Now all matter is in some movement.

November 25.

And perhaps it is true to say that indulgence is mistaken, or deceives us, less than severity.

November 27.

Of appearances in darkness. For example, when traveling in the evening. What one believes one sees and what one imagines.

Sunday, November 25 (at night).

O God! it is still better, and I would rather love you than know you.

November 27.

The most beautiful thing there is is God. After God comes the soul, and after the soul, thought. Nothing, then, is beautiful except insofar as it represents either God, or the soul, or thought. It is God who is the source of the beautiful. Thus the soul is the more beautiful the more it resembles God, and thought is the more beautiful the more it resembles the soul. — Thus, the more the soul resembles God, thought resembles the soul, and speech resembles thought, the more beautiful all this is.

Of those who feel God as light, and Of those who feel him as rule.

At table, in bed, etc., a woman of wit is only a woman. For friends she needs men of merit, and for lovers well-formed men, or at least agreeable men.

T220.Neither the relative clauses nor feminine Bonnes has an explicit noun. Charmer can soothe or charm pain away. Dédomager des plaisirs suggests making up for pleasures, presumably pleasures forgone, but the source does not name that loss; the English leaves the compensation compressed.

T455.The opening ellipsis and feminine Bonnes have no supplied referent. Dédomagent is printed with one m.

T456.This isolated date stands between two centered asterisks without body text; it is retained as an independent date label and does not date the next undated fragment.

T221.The infinitives and unnamed they remain. The preceding isolated November 20 date stands between two source separators and has no body of its own; it is not assigned to this fragment.

T457.The fragment starts with an ellipsis and does not identify ils. The reversed printed date sequence is not reordered.

T222.The source’s mortes and vivantes are feminine, but no noun is repeated after aux. The English retains the dead and the living without supplying women or affections as a certain antecedent. The attribution to L’Astrée remains Joubert’s embedded attribution; no speaker or precise passage is invented.

T458.The feminine mortes and vivantes have no added noun; quotation and source attribution remain inside Joubert’s paragraph.

T223.Neither there nor this genre is assigned an explicit referent. Chateaubriand’s saying remains within Joubert’s paragraph, and even the bad is good retains its deliberate reversal.

T224.The Latin means seized by love of roads. It remains italic in the text; the following French fragment provides the corresponding topic. No classical author or exact quotation source is assigned without evidence.

T225.Fumée is repeated as smoke, including for raw meat. The comparison has a compressed no fire clause before the shared without smoke. The English retains that construction instead of adding a second without smoke to complete it. The extension to all moving matter remains Joubert’s own speculation.

T226.Se trompe and nous trompe retain distinct reflexive and transitive senses: indulgence may itself be mistaken or may deceive us. The comparative less applies to both possibilities.

T227.The impersonal judgment that loving is better and the personal preference for loving over knowing both remain. The original date follows November 27 but reads Sunday, November 25, at night; its source position is preserved.

T460.Printed O has no circumflex; the date remains in its source position after November 27.

T228.God, soul, thought, and speech remain successive terms. The beautiful is kept as a nominal term where le beau occurs, and the final repeated comparisons are not shortened to a general claim that all beauty comes from God.

T229.The repeated Of preserves the source’s capitalized De. Rule is retained for règle, rather than silently narrowed to a law or expanded to a ruler who governs.

T230.Joubert distinguishes a woman’s wit, her friends’ merit, and her lovers’ physical form or agreeable qualities. The sex-specific assessment remains his text. Bien faits is well-formed, not morally good.