Diotimos Reading Desk

Tap the page, move to the top or bottom edge, swipe down, or press Tab to reveal reading controls. Use the arrow keys or swipe sideways to turn pages.

← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

YEAR 1807

Molé. He reads, he sees, or he hears; and immediately he fabricates a judgment so well constructed that he makes it indestructible to himself. So much so that, when he is mistaken, he puts himself beyond being disabused.

She is a woman who has no belly, a mind without entrails, a mummy alive and in motion.

It is not and never has been permitted that one who is very good should do anything that is not very beautiful. (Plato in the Timaeus.)

March 18.

Spiritual and moral ideas must enter the head first, for if they found the place taken by the dogmas of physics, they could no longer make their way into it. Our mind, then accustomed to being content with first notions, would refuse better ones.

March 19.

To exclude from a fact, an image, a feeling, or a thought what does not belong to it: the height of art.

... who speak without mind of the things of the mind.

One had thought one was speaking with a soul, and it turns out one has spoken only with a judgment.

Booksellers want volumes to be made, and that is the price of their esteem.

March 20.

Respect is paid to dominion (that which one has over oneself or exercises over others). It is a feeling commanded or levied like tribute.

“One is frank by character and truthful by principle (says Mme de Staël). Frankness, when questioned, often cannot keep a secret; but veracity, being a virtue, always gives way to a virtue of a higher order when it encounters one. I would rather (she adds) live with a frank man (than with a truthful man)... because qualities have this advantage over virtues for others: they require less respect while giving the same enjoyments.” She seems to say: — less work and more income. — This idea evidently arose in her from that of commerce and an investment of funds. Let us say more clearly: — Frankness is a natural quality, and constant veracity a virtue. One loves qualities more, respects virtues more. One can say that virtue is knowledge. Thus every virtue gives way to a virtue of a higher order when it encounters one. This means that a virtuous man fulfills his duties in their order and makes the lesser duties yield to the greater. This is what the merely good man does not always do. Our qualities are only an order without light, a regularity without a rule, a doctrine without a measuring line, a balance without plumb, a harmony for which nothing beats time for us, an instinct for what one must be and not for what one must do.

— who find nothing beautiful in style unless they are, so to speak, alerted and flattered by its softness. They want colors and flesh everywhere, as though these were living things.

To speak for the ear and write for memory.

Small books are more enduring than fat ones; they go further. Booksellers revere fat books; readers love small ones. What is exquisite is worth more than what is ample.

A book that shows a mind is worth more than one that shows only its subject.

T143.Hears renders entend in the sequence reads, sees, or hears. Fabricates and constructed retain the making image. Indestructible to himself means the judgment is made impossible for him to undo; the concluding inability to be disabused is not changed into praise for certainty.

T144.The woman remains unnamed. Belly, entrails, and the moving mummy keep the source’s bodily metaphor rather than replacing it with a neutral character assessment.

T145.The negative permission and both very qualifications remain. Plato in the Timaeus is the source’s attribution; the English does not supply a named divine subject that Joubert’s formulation leaves as one who is very good. Compare Plato, Timaeus 30a, whose Greek joins the best and the most beautiful. The passage is securely identifiable, but Joubert’s wording is retained; this does not establish which edition or translation he used. Cousin’s later French version (1837) differs in modality and in its final adjective, so it is offered only as a historical parallel.

T146.The spatial image of a place already occupied remains. First notions refers to the notions already received in this argument; no doctrine of innate ideas is supplied. Physics retains the historical name of inquiry into nature rather than becoming a claim about a particular modern scientific theory.

T147.Mind translates both instances of esprit to preserve the repeated term; wit and spirit are also within its historical range. The source does not name the speakers. Soul and judgment in the next paragraph remain distinct, and judgment is personified as a conversational partner.

T382.The first paragraph is an ellipsis-led relative fragment. Avait retains the printed ai spelling. The second paragraph contrasts âme and jugement without a newly supplied personal name.

T148.Dominion renders empire as command over oneself or others, as the parenthesis specifies. Respect is paid, commanded, and levied in the continuing tribute metaphor; it is not recast as affection freely given.

T149.The quotation attributed to Mme de Staël and Joubert’s ensuing commentary occupy one source paragraph. Frank, truthful, frankness, veracity, qualities, and virtues remain differentiated. The precise external quotation has not been collated. When questioned, often cannot reads souvent with the inability to keep a secret; its proximity to interrogée also permits a different emphasis on frequent questioning.

T150.The quoted preference ends before She seems to say. Work, income, commerce, and investment remain Joubert’s economic interpretation of the preceding words. Both occurrences of yielding to a higher virtue keep the same relation; one renders the already described virtue encountered, not an unidentified person. Knowledge renders science as organized understanding, without narrowing it to a modern scientific discipline.

T151.Measuring line renders cordeau; plumb retains aplomb as uprightness or steadiness in the balance image. Order without light, regularity without rule, doctrine without a line, balance, and unmeasured harmony remain separate images. The closing being and doing retain their opposition.

T152.The opening relative remains without a named antecedent. Softness is a quality of style. Colors and flesh retain their bodily image; the source’s plural chairs is rendered as English mass-noun flesh. No painting or author is supplied.

T384.The opening relative clause remains without a supplied antecedent. The singular c’étoit with plural choses remains unchanged.

T153.Fat keeps the physical gros against small, and go further keeps the spatial metaphor beside duration. The second paragraph remains a separate claim about revealing a mind rather than merely a subject.