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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

YEAR 1807

March 13.

Life. “We do not have time to know it well enough (said a busy woman) to despise or hate it.”

Chinese. This people that is clothed in silk.

Some connoisseurs say that in music today the airs are no more beautiful, but the accompaniments are better made. Which proves that the art, having been practiced more, is better known.

March 14.

That crowd of connoisseurs who make man more skillful without making him either better or happier.

Mme Pastoret longing for the Romans. We believe everything more theatrical, more historical, more salient to be better and more beautiful; and yet, if the Romans of old had more pronounced features and attitudes, the Romans of today have as much physiognomy.

— and if inattention is more struck by faces, observation is more struck by every expression.

The magic of talent; for talent enchants.

And let us say with Rivarol: “Sensations come from the senses, needs come from the viscera.” Let us add: — Passions come from ideas.

March 15.

Imbeciles! who cannot see that the priest is the philosopher par excellence and that such fables teach us truth.

... his errors are only historical.

March 16.

The public is that portion of the whole of a city or nation that concerns itself with published or public things and has practiced judging them.

— which one cannot remember. That is, of which one cannot renew even the image, and which one cannot thus make perpetual, so true is it that in duration we love only eternity.

New books are ceaselessly demanded, and in those we have long possessed there are priceless treasures of knowledge and charm, unknown to us because we neglect to attend to them.

March 17.

The worker must have his hand outside his work, — the thought must subsist outside the mind. — and the words must detach themselves clearly from the paper.

The worker must have his hand outside his work: that is, he must not need to support it with his explanations, notes, prefaces, etc. The thought must subsist outside the mind: that is, outside the author’s systems or intentions. And the words must detach themselves clearly from the paper: that is, they must attach themselves easily to attention, to memory, be convenient to quote, to move...

T134.The woman remains unnamed and busy; occupied is not interpreted as a military condition. The placement of said a busy woman within the quotation follows the source.

T371.Soye retains its printed y; the noun phrase with a relative clause has no added main predicate.

T135.Airs preserves the musical term. The report distinguishes beauty of airs from skill in making accompaniments; the following Which proves remains a dependent formulation.

T373.The initial noun phrase and its relative clause remain without an added main verb.

T136.Longing for reads regrettant as missing or regretting the absence of the Romans, in the comparison with those of old. Physiognomy retains the source’s technical word for expressive appearance; the claim is not expanded into a modern theory linking anatomy with moral worth. The initial participial phrase remains a fragment.

T137.Inattention and observation remain personified ways of looking; the apparent paradox that inattention is struck by faces is not removed. Every expression renders toute expression without limiting it to one facial feature.

T138.The quotation ends after viscera. The sentence about passions is Joubert’s addition, not assigned to Rivarol. The anatomical viscera remains distinct from the senses.

S1.Source editor’s annotationFrom Sunday, March 15, 1807, a separate sheet: “Variants of the 23rd book of Telemachus.” And: “The manuscript of M. l’abbé Eymery has among the erasures...” Etc. Joubert records two or three variants and offers no commentary.

T139.Imbeciles is the source’s exclamation, followed by a lowercase relative clause. His in the next paragraph reads the possessive in relation to the priest; the source does not supply a separate name. Only historical preserves the restriction without claiming that the errors are historical research errors alone.

T140.The note belongs to Beaunier’s apparatus, with its call on the date heading. The separate sheet’s Sunday date remains within the note. The 23rd book is retained as printed; no alternate division of Telemachus is silently substituted. The incomplete quotation about erasures is not completed.

T375.Scavent is printed without a cedilla. The second paragraph is an ellipsis-led fragment, distinct from the preceding relative clause. The apparatus call follows mars in the date heading, before its period.

T376.The ordinal e after 23 is visibly raised. The quoted effaçures and the ellipsis remain unchanged; the apparatus supplies the sheet date but does not replace the main date heading.

T141.The opening relative has no named antecedent. Even the image renders au moins l’image in the negative construction. Perpetual, duration, and eternity remain distinct, and the final assertion is not changed into a claim that duration and eternity are identical.

T377.The opening relative fragment has no supplied antecedent. Renouveller retains double l, and the repeated dont clauses are not combined into a completed statement.

T142.The first paragraph gives three formulations; the second repeats and explains them. Hand, work, subsisting thought, paper, and attaching or detaching words preserve the physical images. The English retains the period before the first paragraph’s final dash and lowercase and. The explanations belong to Joubert, not the translator.