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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

YEAR 1807

June 22.

— In this sense, then, it is not possible always to write naturally when speaking of Art.

Ordinary prose should never flatter the ear, but should avoid wounding it.

June 23.

In speaking of the arts, one may speak the language of the trades because they are themselves a rough art.

June 24.

... to sense the beautiful when it is in a material, as Bléton is said to have sensed springs when he passed over a piece of ground.

Grace surrounds elegance and clothes it.

June 25.

This wretched little insect that is nothing but a drop of blood, alive and active. (The little bedbug.)

Of those who wish us to be mistaken and of those who wish us to be right.

Religion. The two forces — of repugnance and attraction. — one must resist neither the one nor the other, to keep the just mean.

June 27.

Organization. Do you also make rectitude and its sentiments depend on it? Sentiments! Here the soul shows itself as it is; at last with its specific and innate differences.

Organization. Two men with the same perfection of organization will have imperfect souls. But each of them, if his organization declines, will not be able to develop their own souls as well, (sic) for communication with external objects is deceived. Thus, when the windows of my room are closed or darkened, I see less well, but my power of sight does not depend on my house.

— if each of us is created to understand certain things and to be ignorant of others.

June 30.

— like a currency out of circulation that time has made into medals.

July 2.

Line of life and beauty, which, even while expressing nothing there, beautifies everything it embraces and the pages (or surfaces) it runs across.

T77.They is understood contextually as the trades; the source’s plural subject with a singular rough art is retained. Rough is descriptive here, without a claim that grossier names a particular historical art category.

T78.The initial infinitive remains a fragment. Is said to preserves Joubert’s reported attribution about Bléton; the translation does not certify a power of detecting water. Material keeps matière broad enough to include the material of art.

T257.The opening infinitive fragment is retained. Présentir is printed with a single s, while pressentoit has two; terrein retains ei. Bléton has an acute.

T79.Alive and active modify the drop of blood, as the feminine participles do in French. The opening remains a nominal construction, and the parenthetical identification remains Joubert’s text.

T258.The opening nominal group remains without a main predicate. The feminine participles refer grammatically to goutte. The parenthetical noun has its period inside the closing parenthesis.

T259.The paired De groups remain nominal.

T80.Repugnance retains the aversive sense of répugnance alongside attraction. The instruction is to resist neither force; the English does not invert it into resistance to both.

T260.The initial nominal sentences and the lowercase il after the second dash are retained.

T81.Organization here concerns the bodily constitution and its organs, as the following paragraph’s window analogy indicates. The repeated term and sentiments are kept rather than narrowed to anatomy and emotions. Its follows the printed ses without replacing it by demonstrative these.

T261.Two physical paragraphs are retained; Ainsi begins at the continuation margin within paragraph 2. Faites vous is unhyphenated. The first paragraph prints ses sentimens before Les sentimens. The second retains singular chacun followed by plural pourront and leurs, together with the source’s italic sic; no grammatical repair is made. The comma before (sic) and the printed trompée are retained.

T82.The English keeps the source’s movement from singular each and his to plural their own souls; the French plural verb after chacun cannot be distinctly marked by English will. The source’s italic (sic) remains in the text. Deceived retains trompée rather than substituting obstructed. The windows affect seeing, while the power of sight is said not to depend on the house.

T262.The lowercase si clause has no supplied consequence.

T83.Currency retains the collective possibility of singular monnoye beside plural medals. Médailles can refer to old coins valued as objects as well as medals; the word is not reduced to modern commemorative awards. The Académie’s 1798 Médaille entry (II, p. 83) explicitly includes ancient Greek and Roman coinage.

T263.The comparison stays a fragment, with singular monnoye and plural médailles as printed.

T84.The line remains a nominal subject followed by a relative clause. Nothing is added to identify a particular design or artist; the alternative pages (or surfaces) remains Joubert’s.

T264.The nominal opening and relative clause remain without an added main predicate.