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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume I

Reading language

ANNÉES 1774 à 1776

Source editor’s context: “Joubert a vingt ans. Il est aux Doctrinaires de Toulouse.” / “Joubert is twenty. He is with the Doctrinaires in Toulouse.”

In 1774. — At l’Esquille.

Lively souls grow disgusted with pleasures because they find they have miscalculated: if the pleasure is bad, seize the first moment to tear them away from it: if they return to it, all is lost; they will take the object as it is and be content with it.

1775.

Accent and national character have a natural affinity.

The manner of expressing oneself differs according to character. So does the manner of pronouncing words.

1776. — At Falguière’s.

Perfect innocence is perfect ignorance: it is neither prudent nor suspicious; no reliance can be placed on it: it is a lovable quality, loved more than virtue and revered just as much.

No individual date printed

ECHOES

From the flowering banks of the Vézère To the fertile shores of the Tarn My muse on a light wing Takes flight, flies off and departs. Tender friendship calls her back there: At its accents...

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Receiving favors from someone is a surer way of binding him to us than doing him a favor. The sight of a benefactor is often irksome; the sight of a man to whom we have done good is always pleasant. We love our own work in him.

To wish to do without all other men and be obliged to no one, a sure sign of a soul without feeling.

Always to defy propriety is the mark of a base or corrupt soul; to be its slave on every occasion, of a petty soul and...

Duty and propriety do not always agree.

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It has been said that chastity was the mother of the virtues. It chains the dearest and most imperious of our passions. Through it, the soul it inhabits has a character of strength and energy that enables it easily to overcome the obstacles that stop it on the path of virtue: when chastity is lost, the soul is soft and cowardly. It has only those virtues left that cost it nothing.

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A suspicious young man is in danger of one day becoming deceitful.

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By dint of trust, we can make it impossible for someone to deceive us.

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Often our fine qualities are loved and praised only because our faults temper their brilliance.

— It would be true to say that we are often loved more for our faults than for our good qualities.

A man who shows no faults is a fool or a hypocrite to be distrusted.

There are faults so closely bound to fine qualities that they announce them, and we do well not to rid ourselves of them.

No individual date printed

It is a cruel situation indeed to be unable to bring oneself to hate and despise someone one can neither love nor esteem.

We are less hostile to those who hate us than to those who despise us.

We are more at ease with a man we hate than with a man who disgusts us.

Hatred between the two sexes scarcely dies out.

S1.Source editor’s annotationI bring together the few fragments that remain from these three years during which Joubert was with the Doctrinaires in Toulouse.

S2.Source editor’s annotationThis date, written on the back of the leaf, appears to have been written later than the text on the front; but it is in Joubert’s hand.

S3.Source editor’s annotationHere, in Joubert’s hand: “p. 24.” And I do not know what this means.

T1.The source editor supplies the final letter in on[t]. English have renders the completed verb without forcing a bracket inside an unrelated English form. Letter-level grammatical supplements in orage[s] and similar forms are likewise retained in French and translated normally.

S4.Source editor’s annotationThese little verses are on the back of the leaf containing the preceding thought; Joubert crossed them out with a stroke of the pen.

S1.Source editor’s annotationI believe that a collection of scraps of paper I found in the same bundle, held together by a pin, should be assigned to this Toulouse period of Joubert’s youth. They have the same characteristics as the preceding ones: the same paper, close similarities of handwriting, and references to pages (mysterious references, moreover).

S2.Source editor’s annotationAt the head of this leaf, Joubert wrote “p. 60.” This thought is in exactly the same hand as the one dated 1776.

S3.Source editor’s annotationIn Joubert’s hand, “p. 66.”

T2.The facsimile prints est molle est lâche, apparently repeating est where et would be expected. French retains the printed form; English reads soft and cowardly. The earlier source spelling profités is also retained without reproducing its orthographic anomaly in English.

S4.Source editor’s annotationIn Joubert’s hand, “72.”

S5.Source editor’s annotationThe leaf, torn at the top, allows only the last word of a sentence to be read: “...learned.”

T4.The source note preserves only ...appris at the torn top of the leaf. Learned is provisional: the lost construction could instead require taught or another contextual sense. No subject or missing sentence has been supplied.

S6.Source editor’s annotationIn Joubert’s hand, “84.”

T3.The source prints parce nos, without que. English supplies the ordinary causal construction because. The metaphor of faults announcing good qualities is retained.

S7.Source editor’s annotationHere Joubert drew a heavy cross, as though marking a personal memory.

S1.Source editor’s annotationIn Joubert’s hand: “for page 139.” Was he preparing a work whose composition, one must suppose, was well advanced? or a commentary on a book?...

T5.Beaunier’s note on page 34 prints où le commentaire; English takes the apparent où/ou slip as or a commentary. The note’s speculation about an unidentified work is preserved as speculation.