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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

Mr. Hochet and Mme de Sévigné.

That modest, slow tone that makes mediocrity bearable, and why do I say bearable? that makes it loved, that makes it agreeable and excellent.

November 12.

Every mind has its lees.

Of those who have craft or mechanics in their minds.

November 13.

General Br—n—. This man is a talking hat, placed on the head of an army; and that is all. But *** is a head at the end of a body.

(half-dream.) The soul sees only what is in the brain (except God, who is in the mind, as we shall say elsewhere); it finds images and ciphers there. To these images and ciphers correspond words written between the tongue and the brain. If the ciphers or images are obscured, if the correspondence between words, images, or ciphers is interrupted or even broken, if the mirror has no life left, then the soul sees nothing more, understands nothing more, and can no longer think of anything but God. The real world ceases for it. The intelligible world receives it, and it sees that world. Images and ciphers have their places and are in the brain. Ideas have none and are in the mind itself. Thus the idea of God is in the mind, and nothing can efface it from there. On the contrary, when everything is effaced, it appears.

November 16.

Like those who attend to the color of eyes and do not observe their character. — For there are eyes that do not have the same color and do have the same character.

One must prick the swelling.

November 17.

Many words have changed their meaning. Observe, for example, the meaning of Liberty among the ancients. At bottom it had the same meaning as dominion. “I wish to be free” meant for them “I wish to govern or administer the city”; and among us these words mean “I wish to be independent.” Liberty has a moral meaning among us and had...

Affectation, pretension. — Affectation has more to do with words, pretension with the writer’s vanity. Pretension invariably offends, and rightly. Affectation does not always displease; time effaces it.

Affectation or studied refinement. — There are two kinds, or rather two characters, of it. Through one the author seems only to say to the reader I wish to be clear or I wish to be exact; and then he does not displease. But sometimes he also seems to say I wish to shine, and then he is hissed. General rule: whenever the writer has thought only of his reader, one forgives him; if he has thought only of himself, one punishes him. See Sallust; see Pliny the Younger.

November 20.

Outer part of the soul, whose feet and hands alone then act (so to speak).

L—L—T— like a kind of badly danced sarabande. — Grace excuses the measure, but perhaps it alone excuses it.

November 21.

Light in vapor, light in streams, light in dew, light in bottles as in the diamond, if one could speak thus. It is, so to [speak], a paste in the pearl...

T159.The speaker corrects bearable to loved and then agreeable and excellent. The modest, slow tone and this escalating repetition remain. The fragment does not acquire a new finite main clause.

T160.Lees retains lie as sediment, with its possible depreciatory force. It is not translated as a falsehood or flattened into a general flaw.

T161.Métier is understood as practiced craft here, alongside mechanics. The Of opening remains a nominal fragment; the translator does not turn it into an assertion that all thought is mechanical.

T162.The abbreviated general’s name and the three asterisks masking another name remain. The repeated head links the head of an army to a head at the end of a body. Neither person is identified by inference.

T163.Ciphers renders chiffres as signs distinct from images, without restricting them to a modern encrypted code. Understands reads entend in this account of thought; hears is also linguistically possible. The brain and mind remain distinct locations, the mirror retains its life, and ideas have no places in the stated sense. The final it refers to the idea of God, which appears when everything else is effaced. The lowercase half-dream circumstance remains within the paragraph.

T164.The Like opening has no supplied comparison target. Color and character are different qualities of eyes, and the repeated same preserves their contrast. No definition of character is added.

T318.Comme opens a comparison without a supplied governing clause.

T165.The physical prick and swelling remain. The translation does not decide whether the phrase is literal or a figure for deflating pretension.

T166.Dominion renders the Latin dominium while preserving the distinct term. The comparison concerns the meanings Joubert attributes to ancient and contemporary liberty. Moral is not weakened to merely private. The final and had remains unfinished, without a supplied ancient counterpart.

T167.The first is associated more with words, the second with the writer’s vanity. The judgment that time effaces affectation remains distinct from the claim that pretension invariably offends. No single term replaces both.

T168.Studied refinement renders recherche in this discussion of mannered writing. The three I wish formulations remain without added quotation marks and retain their source emphasis. The source prints ou lui pardonne, or forgives him; English understands on, one, in the rule’s parallel clauses. French retains the anomalous ou, and this interpretation is disclosed rather than silently applied to the source.

T169.The outer part of the soul remains a fragment. The soul’s feet and hands alone act; the parenthetical so to speak qualifies this bodily image. No new situation or subject is supplied.

T321.The opening nominal phrase remains a fragment without a supplied antecedent or main assertion.

T170.The abbreviated name remains unidentified, and the comparison has no supplied main verb. Measure retains mesure in the dance image. The closing it refers to the measure, while grace is what excuses it; the English does not substitute an unprinted fault for the object.

T171.Vapor, streams, dew, bottles, diamond, paste, and pearl retain the successive material images. The source-supplied dire corresponds to bracketed speak. The first sentence remains a nominal sequence and the final ellipsis remains unfinished.

T323.The supplied [dire] is printed in square brackets. The first sentence remains a nominal sequence and the second ends in an ellipsis.