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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

YEAR 1807

Human wisdom: keeps away the evils of life; and one must seek it too. Divine wisdom: alone makes one happy, by enabling one to find the true goods.

One must use movement to seek human wisdom, and rest or meditation to seek divine wisdom.

In Bruce, the columns of sand in the desert. Beauty of this spectacle, through the play of light. Everything beautiful in the world is so only through the sun or the Divinity, true sun of minds.

February 13.

When what we say resembles what we are...

February 14.

Nobility; say rather, notability: hereditary notability. And do not take a political quality for a moral quality, an institution for a temperament, a dignity, finally, a rank, for a natural excellence, a role for a person, a coat for a man, a mask for a face. One is no more eternally noble than one is eternally king, eternally judge, eternally general. What is willed and agreed upon is annulled by revocation. Forgetting destroys what is founded on memory. There is, however, a natural and naturally hereditary notability. Explain how. (See what I said about the principle, September 1803.)

Every composed face disconcerts me. Except in church; basis of the exception. There are others, on the contrary, whom an open face disconcerts and irritates.

Convenience has destroyed religion, morality, and politeness.

—... plebeians in their own country and during their lives, but princes of the human species in the eyes of foreigners and after their death.

— it is not obscurity they fear. They wish to have a rank only among minds and in the minds of other men.

February 15.

— The inclination that carries us toward the good.

February 16.

Ch. D[elalot], Z. — This man has found himself a head suited to housing the ideas of Mr. de Bonald. He is only their echo and believes himself a voice. Everything good he says when he is repeating nothing is only a prolongation of the vibration caused by the movement first imparted. — Even when he speaks all alone, he resounds. But then one also senses the buzzing more. A buzzing that is, however, strongly articulated. For this echo is peculiar: it speaks more distinctly, more loudly than the voice that animated it.

So I was saying last night: — It is making peoples drink love potions from chalices, it is poisoning the hosts.

— at least that one was a coward only in the wrist; — but to be one in heart, in head, in thought and in will, to be one even when alone, like Dussault, is not merely to be a coward, it is to be craven, a wretch to be mocked.

T78.Keeps and makes retain finite third-person verbs after the two labels; they are not imperatives. True goods preserves the plural biens in opposition to evils. The following paragraph’s movement and rest remain separate modes of seeking wisdom.

T318.Both colon constructions retain finite singular verbs after the nominal labels; no new imperative or personal subject is supplied. Fesant retains the printed spelling.

T79.The two opening fragments remain. Divinity retains its capital, and minds preserves esprits without converting the metaphor into a literal astronomical account. The exact Bruce passage has not been collated here.

T320.The Quand clause remains unfinished at the printed ellipsis.

T80.Notability preserves Joubert’s deliberate change of term from noble status to being notable. Person renders personnage against role, while coat keeps the outward garment opposed to the man. The repeated eternally and the final claim of natural hereditary notability remain. Explain how is Joubert’s own unfinished instruction.

T81.See expands Latin Vid.; September expands the historical month abbreviation 7bre. This is a backward reference, not the entry’s date. The source gives no day or page here, so neither is invented.

T321.S’annulle retains the printed double l. Expliquer comment remains an infinitive. The terminal 7bre 1803 belongs to a backward source reference and does not replace the opening date; the abbreviation is not expanded in the French.

T82.Composed keeps the sense of a face whose expression is controlled or arranged, contrasted with an open face. Basis of the exception remains an unexplained fragment; no reason for the church exception is supplied.

T83.The unnamed plural subjects, initial ellipsis, and two separate paragraphs remain. Rank among minds and in other people’s minds retains the repeated esprit rather than replacing it with a single claim to fame.

T324.The initial dash and nominal fragment remain.

T84.D[elalot] retains the edition’s bracketed expansion; Z. remains unexplained here. Their echo refers to Bonald’s ideas. The vibration, resounding, buzzing, and animated voice preserve the acoustic image. More loudly renders plus hautement in that setting; the fragment A buzzing that is remains incomplete as in French.

T325.The source-supplied expansion D[elalot] and the unexplained Z. are retained. The paragraph continues at the top of page 594 without a new paragraph or source block. The comparison of echo and voice, including the relative fragment Bourdonnement qui, is not repaired.

T85.Hosts renders hosties in the Eucharistic image; it does not mean people receiving guests. The love potions, chalices, and poisoning remain the source’s metaphor. The unnamed It is not assigned a new referent.

T86.The unnamed that one remains. In the wrist preserves the unusual bodily restriction, contrasted with heart, head, thought, and will. Coward and craven distinguish poltron and lâche without adding a historical explanation of the dispute with Dussault.

T326.The initial lowercase fragment and unhyphenated celui là are retained; the named Dussault is not assigned a new identity.