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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

YEAR 1807

January 30.

Thus they studied physics, in a sense, to imitate God in their works, and his operations in their actions. For one of the principles of this philosophy was that one must “imitate heaven.”

January 31.

Man and the gods are a hundred times more beautiful with the body clothed. — A valet like Mercury... — For the Graces are serving women; besides, one sees them from behind. — Clothed Muses. — Juno, Minerva, etc. before Paris.

February 1.

“An ingenious choice.” The choice of subject must indeed be “ingenious,” offering the poet’s genius a kind of fantastic place that he can expand and contract at will and populate as he wishes. Too real a place, too historical a population, imprison the mind and hamper its movements.

Horace’s lucid order. Our dry method has no order lucid. It is rather a wooden or earthen order. Everything in it holds together by clamps or is fitted into mortises, as in a wall or an inlaid cabinet. Lucid order has something astral about it. Delalot has none of this lucid order that he praises so much and that must be found everywhere.

Lean style, dull style, restless, gesticulating style, haughty style, etc.

Matter and too many abstractions turn us equally away from intellectual truths. Matter obscures our sight; abstractions lead it astray by carrying and holding it where there is nothing.

February 2.

Experience and reflection alone can check the active intolerance to which religious feelings incline us. See children, so gentle, so humane... They always ask why. One tolerates... When I say experience, I mean the experience of centuries, not that of a single life. History alone can make one hate intolerance. (To reconsider.)

There are two kinds of atheism: the one that tends to dispense with the idea of God, and the one that tends to dispense with his intervention in human affairs.

Virtue is not an easy thing. Why should religion be?

Forgetting the eternal rule, that of justice, you take strength alone for merit without noticing it, and whoever is not strong seems guilty to you.

In images there is light, and one can find one’s way through them. But in abstractions there is none, and one does not know how to get out. When the abstraction is of a reality, reality brings us back; but when it is of a metaphysical thing, what resource remains, and how can one see that one has been mistaken? Avoid, then, abstractions of everything that has no body; admit only images in such matters.

And how many decisions in which judgment takes no part! One decides without evidence, from weariness, from haste, to end an examination that bores or to put an end within oneself to an uncertainty that torments. One decides, finally, by will and not by intelligence.

T42.The singular body and the hundredfold comparison remain. Valet, serving women, the view from behind, and the clothed Muses retain the sequence of fragments. Paris names the mythological figure in the source, not the city; no unprinted account of his judgment is supplied.

T284.The singular le corps vêtu and the following nominal fragments remain unchanged. The beginning of Un is partly affected by the right-edge damage but readable.

T43.The repeated ingenious is distinct from the poet’s genius. The place can be expanded, contracted, and populated at will; its inhabitants are not renamed historical accuracy. The final imprisonment and impeded movement preserve the spatial metaphor.

T285.The printed accent in poète is read as a grave, with the neighboring high stroke belonging to the t; the compressed accent is not treated as certain diaeresis. The relative qu’il puisse remains with its compressed pronoun attachment.

T44.Lucid order translates lucidus ordo, while order lucid preserves the source’s reversed ordo lucidus. The wooden or earthen order renders the contrasting Latin phrase. Clamps, mortises, wall, and inlaid cabinet preserve the construction imagery; astral retains the return to light and the stars.

T45.Lean, dull, restless, gesticulating, and haughty keep the separate qualities. Haughty renders rogue in its older French sense, not the English noun rogue.

S1.Source editor’s annotationFragment of Chênedollé’s private journal, communicated by Mlle de Lamare: “1807. (Feb. 2.) Joubert has a lofty, calm head. He has the height and serenity of Olympus in his head.” [cited by Ste Beuve, Chat. and his group, volume II, p. 279.] “Joubert says that, for his mind to be at ease...” [see the continuation in the note to May 21, 1802.] ” I was saying to Joubert: There is no rainbow in our language. — That is true, but the prism nevertheless is to be found in Delille’s Paradise.”

T46.The source specifies active intolerance and attributes its impulse to religious feelings. Children, the unfinished One tolerates, and the distinction between centuries and a single life remain. To reconsider translates the author’s own closing A revoir and stays in his paragraph.

T47.This is Beaunier’s separate apparatus, quoting Chênedollé and inserting bibliographical references in brackets. The February 2, 1807 date belongs to the journal excerpt, and May 21, 1802 is the earlier note reference. The unexpected closing quotation mark before I was saying is retained. The book title remains abbreviated in Chat. and his group; Delille’s Paradise translates the printed Paradis without supplying a fuller title.

T289.The attribution lacks an initial L. before de Lamare here. The date 1807 (2 fév.) and the reference to May 21, 1802 remain distinct. The source prints a closing guillemet before Je disais after the second bracketed reference. Its quotation sequence and the brackets around bibliographical instructions are retained without normalization.

T48.The spatial images of light, finding a way, getting out, and being brought back remain. Reality is not replaced with the mind, and body remains distinct from a merely concrete example. The injunction to admit only images remains Joubert’s stated conclusion.

T49.Evidence renders évidence in the account of grounds for decision; it can include what appears manifest or certain, rather than only material proof. The reasons for deciding are weariness, haste, boredom, and tormenting uncertainty; the final will and intelligence remain distinct.