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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

YEAR 1807

February 8.

Only the name of a bad quality can and should be an insult. That of a sect is not, and cannot be one for sensible people. To use it for this purpose is to lack both skill and reason.

February 9.

That the comic, the truly comic, arouses not merely cheerfulness but joy; that is because in the truly comic there is much light and space; characters are shown in a true light and in their entirety. Attention goes all the way around them.

There is a good tone, a tone that is really better than all the others. But what is commonly called good tone is the tone that is in fashion. One says good tone as one says a good dressmaker.

February 10.

Saint Cecilia sang the praises of God; but she heard the Angels, and she fell silent.

Rubens, — and blood made beautiful.

February 11.

Tender piety in all queens, and even the most meticulous piety, has some appearance of the sublime and something superior to their dignity. In the lower classes there are mediocrities that debase it; but in itself, in its essence, this feeling is more than royal. But men need a majestic or grave rather than tender piety. Women need a piety that is tender rather than reasoned.

In the South Sea, Otoo, Teina-maï, Tupia, Toubouraï-Tamaïde, Towa, etc. les Affrique, the manson Kurfa, Nealée, the good schoolmaster, etc. In Abyssinia, the Ilhegie, Ozoro, Esther, Jain, Achmet, etc.

For fear fixes love (at least in children). In the first of these feelings there is something austere that prevents the other from evaporating.

What Bruce says of Nubia: “The custom of going naked in these regions removes absolutely all sense of modesty.” And what shall we say of the habit among us of seeing nudes in paintings? Italy is cited. But there was also less modesty in Italy than in France.

February 12.

Only our own passions and thoughts make us understand those of others.

Ideas one can reach only by a detour. The moderns persisting in proceeding along their straight lines. — Platonic circuits. There is no more method in operating by the straight line than by the circuit.

The wicked man is one who perceives evil with pleasure wherever it is to be done or discovered.

T70.The opening That clause preserves the dependent Que formulation before its explanation. Cheerfulness and joy remain distinct. Attention goes around the characters as around bodies in space; the English does not reduce this image to understanding them.

T310.The opening Que clause has no separately expressed governing phrase before the explanation c’est que. Joye retains its y.

T71.Good tone keeps the repeated ton, which here includes social manners and style. Good dressmaker is a contextual reading of bonne faiseuse in the comparison with fashion; the historical expression could refer more broadly to a skilled female maker. The comparison distinguishes excellence from what fashion approves. See Académie française (1798), Ton, II, 667–668, and Faiseur, I, 563; Féraud, Faiseur.

T72.The nominal fragment remains without an added verb or explanation of Rubens’s painting. Made beautiful renders embéli without replacing blood with flesh or complexion.

T312.Embéli retains its single l and acute accent; the nominal fragment has no supplied predicate.

T73.The source’s separate judgments about queens, lower social classes, men, and women remain. Grave is kept distinct from tender, while reasoned renders raisonnée, not an added assertion that women lack reason. The masculine ce sentiment refers back to the feeling of piety.

T74.The anomalous les Affrique and the unverified title manson remain untranslated, rather than being silently repaired as In Africa and a standardized title. Names retain the French transcription’s spellings and qualified accents. The list is not expanded with biographical identities that the printed passage does not supply.

T75.Fixes preserves the physical relation to evaporating. The first feeling is fear and the other is love. The opening For and the qualification at least in children remain.

T76.The English translates the quotation as Joubert records it. The precise external passage has not been collated here. The comparative claim about Italy and France remains his assertion; no documentary confirmation is implied by the translation.

T315.Nud retains d and ote has no circumflex. The opening reference remains without a supplied governing verb; no exact external citation or standardized quotation is substituted.

T77.The opening ideas and the moderns persisting remain fragments. Circuit keeps the recurring circular image, and the final comparison does not privilege the straight line as more methodical.

T316.The single paragraph continues onto page 593. The first two formulations remain nominal and participial fragments; recti-ligne retains the printed internal hyphen.