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

March 26.

Imagine a spider’s legs amusing themselves by drawing from the threads of its web sounds as light and slender as they are. Such is Casimir’s playing in what is extraordinary about it.

March 27.

This reason is good, not as conclusive, but as dramatic. That is, it bears the character of the person who gives it; it must or may seem good to him; it springs from his own depths. One can say that there are arguments ex homine just as there are arguments ad hominem.

That is quite simply finding a way to draw sounds that are not beautiful from a beautiful instrument.

During our youth, there is often something in us that is better than ourselves, I mean better than our desires, our pleasures, our consents, and our approvals. Our soul is then good, although our intelligence and our will are not.

The God of metaphysics is only an idea; but the God of religions, the creator of heaven and earth, the sovereign judge of actions and thoughts, is a force.

Religions. If it is not necessary to believe everything they teach, it would at least be beautiful to do everything they prescribe.

March 28.

“As though sonorous words were facts!” said Wassington in his letter to General Carleton on behalf of young Argil.

March 29.

Beautiful verses are those that exhale like sounds or scents.

Some hurl verses like darts. Voltaire’s are launched. His vivacity alone produces them; they gush and do not flow.

Some fabricate theirs; and such verses are not without form, but without life.

Fontanes said very well of certain verses: “Those are not verses of strength, but of effort.” I would like to say to Fontanes himself: — Avoid the trotting, the little steps, and let only sounds be heard.

Verses without pomp, etc. To put an orchestra into one’s verses... Airs without an orchestra, but not without an echo.

March 31.

“The art of making good use of knowledge and finding in it what should please,” Geoffroy puts it exceedingly well (newspaper of the same day). Knowledge, indeed, in itself can only give precepts, not examples. It is a rule, not a model.

... who show and brazenly place before our eyes, in their movements, what is not even pleasant to imagine in the secrecy of our thoughts.

Stamping is without grace, stirring without effect; movement is good, it pleases.

Heaven rarely and almost never grants the same men the gift of thinking well, speaking well, and acting well in all things.

T174.They in as light and slender as they are refers to the web’s threads, not the legs. Playing retains jeu as musical performance and echoes the legs’ play. Casimir is left as named in the source; no unverified identification or instrument is supplied.

T175.Ex homine means from the person; ad hominem, to the person. Here the former reason springs from its speaker’s own nature and character rather than being conclusive. Must or may retains both modalities. Dramatic keeps the relation to character instead of implying mere theatrical exaggeration.

T176.The comparison includes desires, pleasures, consents, and approvals, without merging assent and judgment. The soul may be good while intelligence and will are not; the apparent division within the person is retained.

T177.If and would retain the conditional form. The sentence is not changed into an unconditional declaration that belief is unnecessary. Beautiful preserves beau as the judgment on doing what religions prescribe.

T178.Wassington and Argil preserve the source’s spellings. The exact wording of the external Washington letter has not been independently located; the attribution remains that of Joubert’s source.

T179.The five source paragraphs remain distinct, including the last on page 605. Exhale, darts, launch, gush, flow, and fabrication retain the contrasting ways verses come into being. Gush interprets the qualified anomalous jaillisssnt as the intended jaillissent; the French transcription is not silently corrected.

T180.Strength and effort remain in the source order, as do the trotting and little steps. The quoted judgment ends before Joubert’s proposed advice to Fontanes. Only sounds is not expanded into a claim that verse should lack sense.

T181.Pomp, orchestra, airs, and echo remain separate musical images. The instruction To put an orchestra into one’s verses and the subsequent airs without an orchestra are not reconciled or completed.

T182.Science is knowledge here, rather than only the modern natural sciences. Give precepts, not examples renders préceptive et non pas exemplaire, followed by the source’s rule and model. The parenthetical newspaper of the same day is Joubert’s citation, referring to the printed March 31 date; it supplies no new composition date or newspaper title.

T408.The journal circumstance remains within the paragraph and refers to the same day; no independent newspaper title is supplied. Elle même is unhyphenated.

T183.Stamping, stirring, and movement distinguish trépignement, remuement, and mouvement. The first two are judged without grace and without effect respectively; neither is merged with the movement that pleases.