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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

YEAR 1807

Whoever does not see his friends in a beautiful light loves them little.

To see in a beautiful light. — Whoever does not see in a beautiful light is a bad painter, a bad friend, a bad lover. Whoever does not see in a beautiful light has not been able to raise his mind as far as natures, or his heart as far as goodness.

Voltaire. He also had the she-ape mind. The she-ape mind is an ugly mind with pleasing movements. Voltaire sometimes resembles a man of great sense as an ape resembles a man.

There are thoughts that have no need of body, of form, of [a mirror] (see above), of expression. It is enough, to show them or [make] them heard, it is enough, I say, to designate them vaguely and [make] them rustle. At the first word, one hears them and sees them.

Of what kind these thoughts are. And that: they are always by [their] nature either very common or very rare. Why?

April […].

The molded hand and cursive. Print and manuscript. Images of the two styles.

Mme de la B[ri]ch[e] says that “heaven has ordered time to console the unfortunate.”

“This felicitous and touching softness,” Voltaire says of Virgil. Touching softness is good; but felicitous was useless.

A softness that does not touch the heart, an energy that strengthens nothing, a concision that draws no kind of features, a style in which neither feelings, nor images, nor thoughts flow, have no merit.

Give bile to Fénelon and cold blood to J.-J. R., and you will make two bad authors of them. The first had his talent in his reason, the second in his madness.

But which is better, the genius that comes from wisdom or that which comes from the passions?

It is thoughts alone that show the man in a work, not whole, but by the head and face, if I may so express myself. The rest shows only the hands.

It is thoughts alone, thoughts taken in isolation, that characterize a writer. One is right to call them features and to quote them. They show the head and face, so to speak. The rest shows only the hands.

There are phantoms of authors, phantoms of works.

April 9.

J.-J. Rousseau had his talent in his humors: as long as nothing stirred them, he was mediocre. Everything that made him wise made him an ordinary man. Fénelon, Plato, on the contrary. And that is why Rousseau is not sublime: his genius lay wholly in his follies; he had none in his reason.

Fontanes. His taste is sound, even exquisite; but it is not stable.

There are men who have genius in the body, others who have it only in the soul.

T15.In a beautiful light renders en beau within the repeated painting and affection analogy. Little preserves peu as a degree, rather than making the statement an absolute denial of love. His friends is the ordinary English possessive counterpart of ses amis.

T27.The first sentence is a separate paragraph and keeps ne…pas and the degree peu without turning it into an absolute exclusion. The second starts with its own infinitive phrase, period and substantial dash, then repeats both Qui openings and all three mauvais roles. The word natures is retained literally at the qualified level; the double-image contours do not justify replacing it by a more expected abstract noun. The comma after esprit remains, along with the repeated jusqu’ relations. The right-edge endings in mauvais and élever are abraded but retain identifiable parts at the stated qualified level; no extra word or loss is inferred. The two paragraphs are roman.

T16.The infinitive opening, dash, both Whoever clauses, repeated en beau and all three bad roles remain. Natures keeps the unusual literal plural at its qualified source reading; no more expected abstract noun is substituted. The two as far as relations retain jusqu’ and the mind/heart distinction. The source comma between esprit and jusqu’ has no natural counterpart in the English complement and is omitted.

T17.She-ape preserves the specifically feminine guenon and repeats it, distinct from the later generic singe, ape. The unusual mind image remains the author's, with no added biographical explanation. Had renders printed eut; also, sometimes, ugly/pleasing and the two resemblance clauses retain their force.

T28.All four sentences remain within one paragraph before the next centered star. The finite eut is retained as printed, and guenon repeats after esprit without an inserted hyphen. Mouvemens has no supplied t. The degree quelquefois, the repeated resemblance relation and the two homme occurrences remain; no biographical explanation is inferred. The last right-edge letters, including the ending of quelquefois, are blurred but retained as qualified recognizable shapes.

T18.The recovered 608 opening joins the surviving 609 continuation as one paragraph. [A mirror] now gives a contextual English reading of […]iroir, including an ordinary English article; it does not certify the lost French opening. Both [make] forms mark contextual faire readings where the fresh native comparison certifies only aire. The repeated It is enough and sound/sight relations remain. Rustle retains bruire's audible motion without identifying a physical sound source. See above freshly renders roman vide supra; its exact target remains unestablished despite the earlier mirrors discussion. The old fragment and its earlier note are preserved as historical evidence, not duplicated in the main text.

T29.The first paragraph begins after the final 608 star and continues through the first three lines of 609. The two complete de phrases and the third de printed at the end of page 608 are retained; no page-boundary punctuation or new paragraph is inserted. The initial component before iroir remains materially incomplete in both witnesses, so the earlier […]iroir is not silently restored as miroir. A direct color/native comparison of the 609 continuation certifies only aire at both line openings, not the full initial f. These fresh source losses are explicitly marked in this separate joined French. The two earlier frozen faire forms and their English counterparts remain intact in the preservation ledger; no frozen file is edited. The contextual reading faire is not a recovered glyph. The repeated Il suffit/il suffit dis-je, both sound/sight pairings and every pronoun remain. Vide supra remains roman Latin inside its original parentheses; its exact target is not established by thematic resemblance to the upper words/mirrors unit. The second paragraph is separately indented on 609 and ends before that page’s first star. Its first sentence has a period; the incomplete governing Et que : is retained with the colon, followed by the common/rare alternatives and final question. Before eur nature the complete initial l is not certified in the color/native views; […]eur marks the newly qualified source loss. The frozen leur and its earlier English are preserved in the exact old-object ledger. No April date is inferred for the unit. Independent original-size color/native comparison now agrees with the 609 aire/aire/eur limits and the remaining 608 right-edge gaps. This agreement does not restore complete missing letters. These qualified readings belong to the current recovery; earlier fragment readings are retained in the historical record.

T19.The opening period and incomplete And that with its colon remain; no governing verb or initial question mark is supplied. The two very alternatives and final Why stay distinct. [Their] contextually reads the newly qualified […]eur without restoring l in French. The recovered topology identifies this as the second paragraph of 608/e08, beginning on 609, with no inferred date; the old unassigned object and note remain in the preservation ledger.

T208.The molded hand renders le moulé as carefully formed, printlike writing beside cursive. The following print and manuscript pairing remains separate. The clipped day is not reconstructed as a numeral from the surrounding dates. The Académie’s 1798 Mouler entry also gives substantive le moulé for printed text; the printlike handwriting interpretation adopted here therefore remains one possible reading beside print itself.

T428.The day is clipped to an incomplete stroke at the left edge; no numeral is certified or inferred from chronology. The nominal formulations and masculine moulé/feminine cursive remain. The opening of deux is partly clipped and restored from its surviving letters and syntax.

T209.Only [ri] and [e] are supplied in the source edition’s B[ri]ch[e]; their bracket boundaries remain. The quotation presents heaven’s command to time without an invented external reference.

T210.Felicitous renders heureuse as a favorable literary quality rather than an emotion experienced by softness. Touching and touch the heart convey attendrissante and attendrit. The quoted phrase and the two italicized items in Joubert’s response remain distinct; his judgment that heureuse is unnecessary is not applied by deleting it from the quotation. The phrase occurs in Voltaire’s Épopée, in the section De Virgile, within an observation about Dido’s passion. Joubert quotes the phrase alone.

T211.Softness must touch, energy strengthen, concision draw features, and style carry feelings, images, and thoughts. These different effects remain distinct. Features keeps traits linked to the facial imagery developed in the succeeding entries.

T212.Cold blood keeps the bodily image of sang froid alongside bile, while carrying its idiomatic sense of composure. The first and second refer to Fénelon and J.-J. R. respectively. The next paragraph’s question about wisdom and passions remains a question, not an editorial verdict.

T213.Both related formulations and the repeated closing sentence are preserved in separate paired paragraphs. Features renders traits, joining the quotable thought to the face it reveals. The hands remain the image for the rest of the work; no claim of a complete portrait is added.

T214.Humors retains humeurs as dispositions or moods with its bodily resonance. Ordinary renders vulgaire as common rather than necessarily coarse or obscene. The Fénelon, Plato fragment remains without a supplied verb. These are Joubert’s judgments, not retrospective diagnoses.

T433.The left edge of the day is damaged, but the surviving loop and descending shape support 9. Fénelon, Platon, au contraire remains a verbless fragment. The left-edge openings of les, homme and Rousseau are partly clipped and restored from surviving letters and syntax.