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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

YEAR 1808

M. de Bausset says of Fénelon: “He loved men more than he knew them.” This saying is charming... and it is impossible to praise with more wit what one blames, or to praise better while blaming.

February 17.

The angry muses will speak ill of his memory.

February 19.

To produce a thought, one needs only heat and movement; that is to say a conviction and a judgment; in short, a decision. But to bring an idea to light, one needs an exact and clear notion and transparent words. Now, to have these notions, one must always or very often let one’s head smoke for a long time so that the mind may be clearer. One must let our first perception shed its lees, which takes still more time; one must also polish one’s words as glass is polished.

And with a verse that she purifies in the rays of good sense, said Boileau, who had great experience and an enlightened awareness of the mind’s operations. An idea is the result and the spirit (the pure essence) of an infinity of thoughts.

An exact and clear notion and transparent words are two necessary and indispensable conditions for bringing an idea into existence. Any expression that is merely correct can express well only a judgment.

February 20.

Passages that so occupy our attention that none remains for those that follow.

That kind of poetry of thought which needs neither the aid of verse nor the aid of passions and movements to be such.

In Milton, beauties that are not beautiful and are only great, or strong.

Sunday, February 21.

(At the Conservatory.) Garat has taught men to sing; their own voice had already taught it to women.

February 22.

There are a thousand ways of saying what one thinks, and only one of saying what is. (What is, that is to say what is fixed in our head or in the world.)

It is physical metaphysics and mathematical poetry.

A spider’s web made of silk and light would be no more difficult to execute than this work What is modesty?

February 26.

Writing is well said. Literary style consists in giving a body and a configuration to thought through the sentence.

... that ingenious art of painting speech and speaking to the eyes,

That is material writing: to paint thought and speak to the mind, through the mind, that is style.

In the first work, I start from an idea; in the second, I start only from an image: thus it is less satisfying.

February 27.

Organs are necessary for intelligence to manifest itself, but not to exist. Thus voice, writing, or the hand are necessary to the musician. Enlightened amateurs who can only be amateurs are, so to speak, in all things what [a musician] born mute and without hands, but with an excellent ear, would be in his art. The talent or gift of showing what one excels in depends on bodily organization, but genius and taste come from the soul as God made it before the body.

T98.The comparative says more love than knowledge; it does not negate Fénelon’s knowledge altogether. Wit renders esprit in the praise of the saying. Both acts of praising and blaming remain repeated. The quoted assertion is retained as Joubert’s attribution.

T504.Both occurrences of louër have a diaeresis, confirmed in enlarged facsimiles. The period remains inside the closing guillemet; the following ellipsis and comparative ne are retained. The left-edge opening of the first louër is partly abraded but visible.

T99.Muses remains lowercase, as in the French. His memory refers to remembered reputation rather than an asserted failure of recall; the person is not identified.

T100.Thought and idea remain distinct throughout the entry. Heat and movement lead to conviction, judgment, and decision. The head is allowed to smoke; the image is not replaced by mental effort alone. First perception renders premier apperçu and retains the shedding of lees. Glass renders the plural verres collectively without specifying drinking vessels or optical lenses.

T101.The verse line remains joined to its prose continuation within one paragraph, without added quotation marks. With renders the instrumental d’un vers; she has no supplied antecedent within Joubert’s excerpt. Spirit retains the distillation-like force of esprit beside the parenthetical pure essence. Enlightened awareness renders conscience éclairée without turning it into moral conscience. The line occurs in Boileau’s Satire IX, À son esprit, where she refers to satire and the next line continues the construction. Joubert’s excerpt stops before that continuation.

T102.Both necessary and indispensable remain, as do exact and clear. Merely correct translates ne... que juste in the contrast between a judgment and an idea; the final only restricts what such an expression can convey well.

T103.The nominal and relative construction remains without an independent main predicate. The attention left for later passages, rather than their intrinsic merit, is the subject of the comparison.

T506.The opening nominal relative construction remains without an independent main predicate.

T104.The phrase remains without a governing main clause. Verse, passions, and movements are not replaced by rhyme, feelings, or rhythm alone; the repeated aid remains.

T507.The opening nominal relative construction remains without a main predicate. The small paired or joined raised marks over the e of poësie are read as a qualified diaeresis. The right-edge des is partly abraded and restored from its visible beginning and next-line vers.

T105.The deliberately difficult contrast keeps beauties that are not beautiful beside great and strong. The comma before or remains. No Milton poem or passage is supplied.

T508.The nominal construction and the comma before ou remain. The right-edge ending of que is partly clipped and read from the surviving letters.

T106.The circumstance remains part of Joubert’s paragraph, with its period inside the parenthesis. Their own voice is read as the women’s voice, preserving the change from the teacher of men to women’s own resource. The two verb tenses remain different.

T509.The circumstance is part of the main paragraph in roman type; its period precedes its closing parenthesis.

T107.A thousand ways contrasts with only one. The parenthesis preserves the alternatives of what is fixed in the head or in the world; the statement is not reduced to external facts alone.

T108.The paired descriptions physical metaphysics and mathematical poetry retain their apparent crossings of categories. The following web comparison stays in the same source entry.

T109.What is modesty? translates the italic question-title Qu’est-ce que la pudeur? and carries the same emphasis. No quotation marks are added. Modesty keeps the broad term pudeur; the work is not identified beyond Joubert’s wording. The comparison says no more difficult, without asserting that either task is easy.

T110.Writing is well said retains the metalinguistic opening Ecrire est bien dit. The sentence gives both a body and a configuration to thought; neither is reduced to wording alone.

T111.The two verse lines remain one paragraph, with the first shorter and more deeply indented than the second. The opening ellipsis, initial lowercase, and final comma remain. Speech is painted and eyes are addressed; the following prose deliberately transfers those actions to thought and mind. The first-edition Encyclopédie article ECRITURE quotes these words as Brébeuf’s definition of writing. This period attribution is verified; an original Brébeuf edition was not collated here, and Joubert supplies no attribution.

T112.That is repeats voilà around the comparison. Material writing remains distinct from style, and the mind remains both the addressee and the means in speaking to the mind, through the mind.

T113.The two works remain unnamed. Only restricts the image as starting point in the second work; less satisfying is the stated consequence.

T512.Satisfesant retains the printed e spelling; the two unnamed works are not identified.

T114.Bodily organization renders organisation as the arrangement or constitution of organs, not an institution. Amateurs are appreciators here and need not be practicing performers. The source editor’s [un musicien] is represented by [a musician]. Voice, writing, hand, hands, and ear retain their separate roles. The soul’s existence before the body remains Joubert’s assertion.