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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

YEAR 1807

November 9.

There is some cadédis in Voltaire. He had the Gascon wit, not the language. That is because Gascon wit is French wit.

The bee. — Like the bee that cannot fly if there is dust or moisture on its wings.

November 10.

Indeed, this philosophy, wholly occupied with combating what it calls errors, is consequently itself nothing but the search for errors. Let us say it, then, without fearing that it will contradict us: What is philosophy? It is the search for errors, to combat them. That, then, is its sole occupation, its sole ambition. But since truth resembles error, and they are often mingled, it has killed truths.

There is wit and eloquence in the newspapers, and reasoning in the harangues. Misplaced qualities.

November 14.

In the demonstrative mode, one shows, one persuades through light. In the pathetic mode, one carries people away, one persuades through emotion. When Labruyère says of Cardinal Richelieu that he thought and acted manfully, he persuades through the rightness and clarity of the expression. He is eloquent, whatever Boileau may have said of it, who admitted no persuasion except what the pathetic produces. (See the speech at the Académie française.)

November 15.

Natural disposition. What natural disposition? Is it the ingenious natural disposition, the literary natural disposition, the learned natural disposition? There are many sorts of natural disposition.

A nail, to hang one’s thoughts on.

Genius? One must have it in the top of the head; but one must not put it everywhere.

And he would offer this prayer: ≡ You who give faith and take it away, have pity on us.

November 18.

There are tired minds that go at the amble and the traquenard, and their gait does not displease every taste. — (Note: the little gallop.)

November 22.

They are foolish women who need to sadden themselves and weep to rest from their gaiety and take some respite.

— and through the desire to show as much wit as he had.

T152.Cadédis is retained as the named Gascon oath rather than replaced by an English exclamation. Littré’s historical entry describes an oath conventionally put into Gascons’ mouths and derives it from words for head and God. Wit here renders the repeated esprit, distinct from language. The cultural characterization remains Joubert’s.

T322.The comparison after Comme remains without a supplied main clause.

T153.The restricted this philosophy remains at the opening. Truth and error are the pair that are often mingled; philosophy is the subject that has killed truths. The violent verb is not softened to overlooking truth.

T323.The right edge clips the endings of recherche and démente; both readings are restored from their visible letters and syntax. The coordination comme… que and feminine plural elles are retained.

T154.Harangues retains the public-speech term rather than narrowing it to angry tirades. The final Misplaced qualities remains a nominal judgment.

T155.The rhetorical pathetic concerns moving the emotions, not the modern disparaging sense of pitiful. Mode makes the two technical substantives readable without altering their opposition. Manfully preserves virilement. The printed Labruyère is not regularized in the French, and the parenthetical source instruction remains Joubert’s.

T156.Natural disposition is repeated in all six positions to preserve the inquiry into different kinds of naturel. Naturalness remains another possible emphasis. Ingenious, literary, and learned are distinguished rather than merged into cultivated.

S1.Source editor’s annotationHe, who was speaking, —, is Joubert here. When he makes a quotation, he represents the quotation marks by the sign =. When he quotes himself, he draws three dashes (≡ ) and that is what he does here.

T4.Beaunier’s note 1 on page 631 identifies the third-person speaker as Joubert himself and explains that three horizontal strokes mark self-quotation. The sign is represented here by ≡ in both languages. The entry stands between the dated blocks of 15 and 18 November 1807, but has no date of its own.

T157.He remains the emphasized opening word in Beaunier’s apparatus. The awkward who was speaking and the printed dash-comma sequence are retained. The signs = and ≡ stay distinct, and the three-stroke prayer mark is not replaced by ordinary quotation marks. The previously established prayer pair and its note retain their stable identifiers.

T158.Amble and traquenard remain distinct equestrian terms. The Académie’s 1798 Traquenard entry (II, p. 688) describes a kind of amble or intermediate pace; the French term is retained rather than confused with its separate sense of a trap. Little gallop follows petit galop. Does not displease every taste is a limited negative, not universal approval. The source’s Note remains inside the paragraph.

T159.Foolish women makes the feminine plural folles explicit without identifying individuals or supplying a diagnosis. The need to sadden themselves is retained alongside the rest from gaiety.