Diotimos Reading Desk

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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

YEAR 1808

... when Voiture was teaching the great Condé to laugh at his own glory, and the marquis de Pisani to laugh at his ruin at gambling.

January 5.

If our religious architecture must carry everything from below upward, the choir, the altar, everything must be raised, the ornaments end in points. As for the entrance, it must leave the ground, whether by an ascent or a descent; either is indifferent as to the effect.

— when form is such that it occupies us more than substance. Then, for example, we think that the thought came for the sentence[…] the fact for the account, the blame for the epigram, the praise for the madrigal, finally the judgment for the witticism.

If, in the political mechanism, force must be displaced to obtain happy results, it follows that, outside the danger of war, the civil must command the military, the magistrate the general, the law the arms. Let arms yield to the toga is the first law of the civil world. (I.e., the weapon must obey the hand, the hand the will, the will reason.)

To live happy and always like herself, a j[…] woman must die young, and an honorable woman die old. (Or rather an honorable mother of a family.)

Today, even connoisseurs seek in books only I know not what sensual pleasures suited to amusing taste.

This star is no serene orb.

Voiture’s remark to Mʳ le prince: “this life which is the life […] so many others,” could be applied with simplicity to those almsgiving and helpful people who...

January 6.

There is this drawback in all these letters: Voiture shows his mask rather than his face, which makes them more entertaining at first, but interesting for a much shorter time.

Balzac has much more face and less mask.

... so accustomed to court that, if they are not courted, […] court.

Very agreeable and very ingenious, Voiture nevertheless somewhat resembles those portraits that laugh eternally.

T10.The opening when remains dependent. The two people retain their different occasions for laughter; ruin at gambling is not reduced to a single lost game. No particular letter is identified here.

T11.Choir names the architectural choir space. The source’s movement from must be raised to the indicative ornaments end is retained. Ascent and descent are both said to serve the effect; neither alternative is suppressed.

T438.The printed coordination soit… ou and plural sont after masculine l’un ou l’autre are retained.

T12.Sentence translates the recoverable sense of phra[…], whose ending and following punctuation are lost. The marker records that French loss rather than an asserted missing English suffix. No connective or punctuation is supplied in the gap. The sequence of thought, fact, blame, praise, and judgment preserves the reversal of substance and its verbal occasion.

T13.Force remains distinct from civil command. Let arms yield to the toga translates the emphasized Cedant arma togæ; the toga retains the material image of civilian authority. The source’s abbreviated C. à d. becomes I.e. The three obligations in the parenthesis keep their successive objects. No particular constitutional arrangement is supplied.

T14.The French residue j[…] is retained because the adjective before woman cannot be certified; jolie is possible but not supplied. Honorable renders honnête without reducing it to sexual chastity alone. The parenthetical revision to mother of a family remains, including the qualified restoration of its opening.

T441.Only the opening j of the adjective before femme is secure at the damaged right edge; jolie is contextually plausible but not certified and is not supplied. The damaged parenthetical opening is provisionally read as (Ou before the next line’s plutôt; the closing parenthesis is visible. Elle même is unhyphenated.

T15.Sensual pleasures retains voluptés and the indefinite I know not what. Amusing taste preserves the source’s evaluative faculty instead of turning it into an assertion about entertainment alone.

T16.Orb distinguishes astre from étoile while retaining the celestial image. The star is not identified as an astronomical object or a named person.

T17.The gap between life and so many others remains unfilled; the plausible French de is not certified. Mʳ retains its raised letter and le prince stays unexpanded. Almsgiving and helpful preserve the two qualities, and the closing who clause remains unfinished.

T443.The words after the second vie are lost at the right edge; de is a plausible connective before tant d’autres, but is not certified or inserted. Personnes is provisionally restored from its surviving beginning at the next damaged line ending. The terminal qui clause remains unfinished. The r in Mʳ is raised.

T18.The letters are initially more entertaining but remain interesting for less time. The distinction between mask and face is retained here and in the following separate entry.

T19.Court, courted, and court keep the related words in la cour and courtiser. The subject before the final verb is lost in French and is not supplied; the opening remains a participial fragment.

T445.The right-edge wording before the next line’s courtisent is lost. Ils is a plausible subject but cannot be certified and is not inserted. The initial participial fragment remains.

T20.Laugh is retained for rient, rather than silently softened to smile. The comparison is qualified by somewhat.