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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

YEAR 1808

Criticism must not leave the sphere (that is to say the genre) of a work in order to judge it. Balzac committed this fault in judging Voiture’s sonnet.

Reminiscence is an operation by which the mind picks up the trail of its memories to recover in this way, as if tracking, the memory it has lost.

March 17.

Voltaire possessed the art of familiar style and excelled in no other. He gave the former all the forms, all the charm, and even all the beauty of which it can be capable. He brought all genres into it, which led his deceived age to believe he had excelled in them all.

Those who have praised his taste perpetually confuse taste and charm. One does not savor him, but admires him. He enlivens, he dazzles. It is the mobility of the mind he flatters, not taste.

What we call English gardens requires daily and almost constant care. Wide and spacious avenues grow more beautiful through neglect and abandonment; their trees become thicker for it. And abandonment, which is so often forced, can always be voluntary.

Only a labyrinth of masonry would be a building suited to these strange gardens.

If a regular building dominates, it must radiate regularity, so to speak, casting it around itself to all the distances from which that regularity can easily be seen. Without this effect it seems out of place and to occupy a place unworthy of it.

For these irregular gardens, a labyrinth as a dwelling. For a building is the center. Now a center must be in accord and in harmony with the circumference, which is itself only a central point developed. In the labyrinth of Crete at the gardens of * * *.

In the schools, logic is (or was) an exercise, and that is where its usefulness lay. In the book of Port Royal it is only knowledge of the rules of this art and of the various words it employs.

Whatever people may say, it is meaning above all that makes sound or harmony, and just as in music it is the ear that strikes the mind, in the harmony of discourse it is the mind above all that causes the ear to be flattered. Except from this a small number of very harsh words and other words that are very soft to the ear; languages consist of words with a neutral sound, whose meaning determines their charm even for hearing.

Whatever people may say, J.-B. Rousseau’s verses are overthought. Their harmony is more exact than agreeable; he sings in tune, but not divinely.

March 18.

Historical abstractions. Montesquieu first gave an example of this kind of figure in the chapter on England and France that begins thus: “If there were a people...” Mʳ Molé applied it to the manners of England in his essays. Charles His used it in his little treatise, where politics is mathematical from beginning to end.

That: there may be in the soul a degree of height and elevation useless to the practice of the arts and the beauty of works, but not useless to the respect that the author’s merit, demonstrated by his work, ought to inspire.

That Racine, much more perfect than Corneille, is less great and ought to be less revered.

March 20.

These fixed measures in the sentence are like the object holder in the microscope.

March 21.

Everyone wants to see what they hear spoken of incessantly. Thus their feuilletons fill all the theaters with spectators.

When one accustoms minds to ideas of crime, one accustoms morals to them.

T156.Sphere remains the spatial term, immediately glossed as genre by Joubert himself. The criticism is directed at Balzac’s judgment of a Voiture sonnet; no sonnet title is invented.

T157.Reminiscence remains the named operation, distinct from the plural memories and the single memory sought. Trail and tracking preserve trace and piste; the recovery is not presented as inventing a memory.

T158.Familiar style retains style familier as a manner of expression, not a style merely familiar to the reader. The present can remains inside the historical past-tense account. The former refers to that style; the genres are brought into it.

T543.The present peut remains within the past-tense account. Both physical paragraphs are preserved without an intervening separator.

T159.Savor renders goûte in the repeated discussion of goût, taste. Charm renders agrément, distinct from both taste and admiration. The mind’s mobility remains the quality flattered, not replaced by a general desire for amusement.

T160.English gardens retains the named type. Wide and spacious remain two adjectives; thicker refers to denser tree growth. Forced and voluntary abandonment remain alternatives. The following masonry labyrinth stays in the same four-paragraph source entry.

T544.Appellons, labirinthe, jettant and unaccented paroit retain their printed spellings. An enlarged facsimile confirms the single l and acute in s’embélissent; Crète retains its printed grave. Four physical paragraphs are preserved. The opening and closing nominal phrases of the final paragraph remain uncompleted. Its three spaced inline asterisks mask an unspecified name and are not unit separators.

T161.The pronoun la in the source’s la voir points to regularity, not to the masculine building. The English repeats that regularity to make this relation explicit. Radiating and casting preserve the physical image, and the repeated place is retained.

T162.The opening and closing formulations remain without governing predicates. The circumference remains a central point developed, without a supplied geometric explanation. Three spaced asterisks conceal an unspecified name; they are part of the paragraph, not entry separators.

T163.The parenthetical alternative is or was remains, followed by the past usefulness. The book of Port Royal stays unhyphenated as in the source; no additional title or edition is supplied. Exercise and knowledge of rules remain distinct.

T545.Port Royal remains unhyphenated and employe retains y. The parenthetical alternative tense remains.

T164.Only it is the ear that strikes the mind carries the source’s emphasis. The direction of action then reverses between music and discourse. Neutral renders indifférent as neither inherently harsh nor soft in the argument; meaning determines the auditory charm. Except remains an imperative, separated from the next clause by an English semicolon.

T546.Quoi qu’on is separated here, whereas the next entry prints Quoiqu’on. Exceptez en remains unhyphenated; the full first c’est clause alone is italic.

T165.Overthought renders trop pensés while retaining the criticism of excessive thought. In tune renders chante juste; the contrast is with divinely, not with accuracy alone. J.-B. Rousseau remains distinct from an unexpanded Rousseau without initials.

T166.The passage retains Joubert’s claim of priority for Montesquieu and his abbreviated quotation. Mʳ keeps its raised letter; Molé and Charles His are not expanded. The mathematical description concerns politics throughout the named small treatise, without supplying its title. A close parallel occurs in De l’esprit des lois XIX.5, whose opening differs from the short quotation here. XIX.27 separately develops the character of a free nation. The exact quoted opening and combined chapter description have not been verified in the passages checked.

T167.The initial That and colon remain. Height and elevation are separate terms. The double useless/not useless distinction separates the work’s beauty from the respect due to the author’s merit as demonstrated by the work.

T548.The opening Que is followed by a colon and lowercase il. Both dependent Que paragraphs remain without supplied governing clauses.

T168.More perfect and less great remain distinct comparisons; the initial That has no supplied governing clause. The judgment of reverence remains Joubert’s.

T169.Object holder renders porte-objet broadly as the part carrying the object for examination. No particular microscope model, glass slide, or stage mechanism is specified. Fixed measures stays plural. Haüy’s 1803 account, §904, applies the term to a small glass support in a solar microscope; this period example does not identify Joubert’s instrument.

T170.Feuilletons retains the period newspaper term for the sections or columns that can include theater criticism, rather than specifying a serialized novel. Their has no supplied group of critics or newspapers as antecedent. Theaters renders salles de spectacle without naming venues.

T171.The repeated accustom preserves the parallel between minds and mœurs, rendered morals as collective habits of conduct in this context. The statement is not narrowed to a particular crime or publication.