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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

YEAR 1808

March 11.

When one doubles the glass, it obstructs vision.

All our tastes. So little contents them! and yet nothing satisfies them constantly. A bad image awakens in us all the pleasure painting can give us; and a painting by Raphael leaves our attention and our reflections some beauty to desire. Likewise a stanza of a song.

It is because our feelings are easier to satisfy than our ideas, which extend as we exercise them. The former accord with the limits and situations of our existence. The latter belong more to our nature and our destinies.

The art of making oneself difficult to please is itself difficult to practice.

Outside the needs of life and outside the trades, what is best for us in realities is their images. Their images, I say, which enter you and remain there.

March 12.

To complete! What a word. One does not complete when one ceases and when one declares finished.

Weight, number, and measure. Sometimes sentences have their measure and do not have their weight; at other times they have their weight and do not yet have their measure. In short, measure and weight may be found in them without number being there. And these conditions together alone make a perfect whole.

March 13.

One must therefore make a distance for oneself, create a perspective for oneself, and choose a point of view favorable to the success of such an operation, when one wishes to judge a work, even a work of the mind, — a word, a book, a discourse.

“Let us adore (says Balzac) these clouds and these veils.” Let us say: When you look at the sky, adore the clouds. That is to say: Love God in his obscurity.

March 14.

What makes one search for a long time is that one does not search where one should, and searches where one should not. But how can one search where one should when one does not even know what one is searching for? and this is what always happens when one composes and creates. Fortunately, in going astray like this, one makes more than one discovery, has happy encounters, and is often compensated for what one seeks without finding by what one finds without seeking.

March 15.

The Bibles, in each nation, have a legitimate empire. They are masters of morals. Beyond that I call tyrants in literature all those spellbinding authors whose mind prevents one from loving any mind other than their own. Maleficent magicians who deceive us with pleasures now dark, now smiling. They make themselves masters of the world not through their intelligence, but through the vapor they spread and that veils all objects. Powerful in fascinations, their coming is a true scourge, but a scourge that is celebrated, praised, and over which their followers congratulate themselves upon the wreckage and ruins their enchantments have caused, and amid the blood and tears their power has made to flow.

March 16.

It is not the object seen that words must paint, but the object thought. That is to say the mind must see them as they are, and the sentence must paint them as the mind imagines them, for speech must at once represent the thing and the author, the subject and the thought.

Racine. If the verses paint, the author must be content to say them.

Today, indeed, unbelief is a prejudice. For if there are prejudices that come from men and time, there are others that come from books and novelty.

T143.Doubles retains double without specifying two panes, increased thickness, or a backing layer. The sentence states the obstruction of vision; it does not specify the physical arrangement.

T144.Contents and satisfies retain contente and satisfait. The bad image and Raphael painting remain different examples. Stanza renders couplet de chanson without imposing a two-line English couplet; the concluding Likewise phrase remains nominal.

T533.Three physical paragraphs remain. The opening Tous nos goûts and the De même comparison remain nominal; et after the exclamation is lowercase. The French source retains the parallel masculine premiers and feminine secondes. Lui même is unhyphenated. Two thin short horizontal traces beside de in peu de chose resemble the surrounding scan artifacts rather than a secure typographic hyphen; no hyphen is asserted.

T145.The former means feelings and the latter ideas, matching the French masculine and feminine pronouns. Destinies renders the plural destinations as the ends toward which our nature tends, without naming a particular future state. The following paragraph repeats difficult in the art of becoming difficult to please.

T146.The movement from us to you remains. Realities and their images remain distinct, and the repeated Their images sentence is a nominal relative construction without a new main predicate. Trades retains métiers beside the needs of life.

T534.The move from nous to vous remains. The second sentence is a nominal relative construction.

T147.Complete distinguishes achever from the final fini, finished. What a word keeps the source’s period. No object is supplied after declares finished; ceasing and declaring are not treated as proof of completion.

T148.Number retains nombre as a technical term in the discussion of sentences, including their rhythmic or harmonic ordering rather than mere quantity. Weight and measure remain separate, and the conditional combinations preserve their sequence. The paragraph continues across pages 647–648.

T536.The single paragraph continues at the top of page 648. Phrazes retains z. The initial nominal list and feminine seules are retained.

T149.A distance retains the concrete image of un lointain beside perspective and point of view. The three acts of arranging one’s view remain distinct; the last list extends judgment to a word, book, and discourse. No physical distance is calculated.

T150.The Balzac quotation ends before Let us say. The later formulations retain their direct address and are not given added quotation marks. Obscurity remains God’s, without substituting the reader’s ignorance or naming an external passage.

T151.The repeated search preserves the wrong-place and right-place distinction before the reversal between seeking without finding and finding without seeking. The lowercase and after the question remains; the happy encounters are not assigned particular discoveries.

T152.Bibles retains its plural and capital. Masters of morals and masters of the world keep the parallel authority terms. Spellbinding renders prestigieux in the context of illusion and magic rather than mere reputation. The related period noun prestige includes illusions of sorcery and the arts. The nominal Magicians and the loose Powerful... their coming construction remain. Fascinations, enchantments, vapor, wreckage, blood, and tears keep their separate images; no authors or historical events are identified.

T540.Venuë has a diaeresis, confirmed in an enlarged facsimile. The Magiciens sentence remains nominal, and the loose attachment Puissans… leur venuë is not repaired. The plural Bibles and the comparative/restrictive aucun autre… que remain.

T153.The source moves from singular object formulations to plural les, ils, and tels; English them and they preserve that transition without replacing them by a newly specified noun. Thing and author, subject and thought remain two pairs.

T154.Author follows the printed auteur, not an inferred acteur. The verses perform the painting, and their author is asked to be content with saying them. No specific Racine work is supplied.

T542.An enlarged facsimile confirms l’auteur; it is not changed to an inferred acteur.

T155.Unbelief renders incrédulité. Prejudices from men and time remain distinct from those arising from books and novelty; the judgment belongs to Joubert’s stated today, not a newly assigned present.