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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

YEAR 1807

April 2.

Equality of souls. — Are there souls more perfect, more beautiful, finally more like God than others? — This question becomes more accessible in its height when one enters it from this side. Now, to resolve a question well, a certain ingenuity is as necessary as strength.

The unequal Angels. Opinion of the human race and universal agreement on this subject.

Inequality of minds. That is a different question. If — to the organs, superiority of vision therefore depends on the superiority of the spectacles, and preeminence of forces solely on the preeminence of the levers. But perhaps, on the contrary, these differences depend on the inequality of vision, or of the faculty of seeing applied to the same spectacles, and on the inequality of force applied to the same levers...

Fontanes has many of those beauties that can please only talent.

And I was right to say of the modest beauties of antiquity: it is not talent but taste that loves those things.

These charm, and the others animate. They make one perfect where the others make one active. The latter whip the blood; the former instruct the soul and regulate it. Finally, in bringing them together, one has the bit and the spur.

“Whoever does not climb to the summit falls to the lowest degree.” Yes; but on the summit there are different points, and even points of different elevation. It ends in a curve, in a broad rounded crest, not in a point. One inhabits it as an amphitheater. One sits there on tiers; and those who do not hold first place there are at least in the first rank.

April 3.

History. So much does the human mind love spectacles, and consequently catastrophes. It is [only] through effort and a folding back upon itself and a return toward its reason that it detests their authors as they deserve.

Even some virtues are produced by unreflectiveness, as generosity is by inattention to our own needs, bravery by lack of reflection on danger. Or rather, reflection is then directed solely toward what is most beautiful: aid in the first case, victory in the second. Only the honorable, finally, is considered; and the useful, profit, lucre are forgotten.

There is harmony for the mind whenever there is perfect propriety in expressions. Now, whenever the mind is satisfied, it pays little heed to what the ear desires, if it has any discontents.

April 4.

It seems to me that our qualities are indeed more us than our faults. Whenever N is not good, it is because he is different from himself.

That high poetry is chaste and pious by essence; let us even say by position. For her natural place keeps her raised above the earth and makes her a neighbor of heaven. That from there, like the immortal spirits, she sees souls and thoughts, and little of bodies.

April 5.

— and [they] cling more strongly, in their old age, to keeping the irreligion that escapes them.

The sciences are a food that swells those it does not nourish. It ought to be forbidden them. This vaunted dish makes them disdain another nourishment that would be better for them. Blinded and flattered by their false plumpness...

April 7.

The reasonable man wants solidity, the man of wit appearance, and the man of taste flavor. Matter suffices for the one, form for the other; the last needs delights and wholesomeness, that is, pleasure and usefulness.

Voracity suspends the functions of taste.

Truth! It is a truth that there are useful illusions.

There is solidity and truth (as to effect) wherever there is usefulness.

T196.Height and entering from one side keep the unusual spatial treatment of the question. Ingenuity renders industrie as a resourceful ability to proceed, alongside strength. The succeeding Angels paragraph retains its nominal form and claim of universal agreement as Joubert’s text.

T420.Egalité has no capital accent. The right edge partly damages belles and devient; the endings are restored from visible letters and syntax. The second paragraph is nominal. The unfinished Si — aux organes construction is retained without supplying a predicate. The first vuës has a diaeresis, confirmed in the facsimile, while later vues has none. Peut être remains unhyphenated.

T197.The interrupted If — to the organs does not receive an invented predicate. The paragraph contrasts differences in instruments with differences in the faculty or force applied to the same instruments. Spectacles renders lunettes without deciding a more specialized optical device; the final ellipsis remains.

T198.These and They refer to the modest beauties of antiquity in the preceding paragraph; the others are the beauties associated with Fontanes and talent. The latter and former keep that relation through the blood and soul images. The source’s singular parfait and plural actifs become parallel English predicates. Bit interprets the printed mords in its pairing with spur; the French d is retained and disclosed.

T199.The quotation and Joubert’s response remain one paragraph. A broad rounded crest renders large croupe in the hilltop image. Different elevations, amphitheater tiers, first place, and first rank remain distinct rather than being reduced to a single hierarchy. The external quotation is not attributed in Joubert’s paragraph. The line is Boileau’s Satire IX, verse 26. The checked 1740 witness, page 80, reads vole, flies, where Joubert prints monte, climbs; the translation retains Joubert’s wording.

T200.The opening So much retains the emphatic Tant without supplying an absent governing clause. [Only] corresponds to Beaunier’s [que]. Folding back upon itself preserves repli sur lui même; their authors refers to those responsible for the catastrophes, not to named historians.

T423.The day’s left edge is damaged; the surviving numeral shape is read as 3, rather than supplied from sequence alone. The source-supplied [que] and unhyphenated lui même remain. The opening Tant is retained without a supplied governing clause.

T201.Or rather keeps Joubert’s revision from unreflectiveness to reflection directed toward what is most beautiful. Aid and victory remain the examples; the honorable is distinguished from the useful, profit, and lucre. No later resolution is imposed on the contrast.

T202.Propriety renders propriété as the aptness or exact fitness of expressions, not ownership or conventional decorum. The ear’s possible discontents remain conditional while the satisfied mind takes little notice of them.

T203.The unusual more us and the source emphasis are retained. N remains an unidentified initial without an added period. Being different from himself is not rewritten as merely behaving badly.

T424.The emphatic nous is italic. N has no following period or supplied identification; lui même remains unhyphenated.

T204.Both That openings preserve the dependent Que constructions. The feminine pronouns retain poetry’s personification as a neighbor of heaven. The contrast between souls and thoughts and little of bodies is not expanded into complete disembodiment.

T425.Poësie retains the diaeresis. The two Que openings are retained without inventing a governing construction; au dessus is unhyphenated.

T205.[They] is supplied only to carry the French finite plural into English. No group is identified. Keeping irreligion as it escapes them preserves the source’s paradoxical attachment in old age.

T206.Swelling, food, a vaunted dish, nourishment, and false plumpness keep the bodily metaphor. The proposed prohibition is Joubert’s judgment, not a modern editorial instruction. The final Blinded and flattered fragment remains unfinished.

T427.The left edge partially clips Il, whose surviving strokes and syntax support the reading. The final plural participial fragment remains unfinished.

T207.The three kinds of person and the subsequent matter, form, and delights with wholesomeness remain in source order. Wit preserves esprit in this contrast. The closing paragraph’s voracity suspends taste in both its bodily and evaluative resonance.

T1.The exclamation and following finite sentence remain separate. The repeated truth and paradox of useful illusions are not explained away or made an assertion that all illusions are useful.

T20.The first of two separately indented opening paragraphs has an exclamation after vérité, followed by a separate finite sentence. Horizontal doubling affects small contours and punctuation, but the displayed letter sequence and final period remain identifiable at a qualified level. No new source separator or date is introduced.

T30.The clearer color reproduction permits a qualified reading of page 608. Its first two paragraphs continue the April 7 unit begun on page 607; eight later units have no printed dates. The final unit continues into the two paragraphs at the top of page 609. These paragraphs now appear once, under their established owner. Local losses remain marked, and the destination of see above remains unresolved. The earlier gap notice, fragment translations and notes are preserved as historical records. In the retained note on page 607, closing paragraph refers to the two-paragraph form available before this recovery; the unit now has four paragraphs.

T2.The solidity/truth pair, parenthetic limitation and wherever relation remain. The statement does not assert unrestricted metaphysical truth; the effect qualification keeps its source position.

T21.The second separately indented sentence ends before the first visible centered star. The parenthetic effect qualification and final period remain. Accent contours, including où, are compressed by the horizontal blur and retained as qualified readings; no lost clause is supplied.