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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

YEAR 1808

They take this affair of quietism for a scholastic subtlety, and it is an important question of religious morals, a question of perfection, that is to say one of those questions in which the smallest errors erected into principles would have the most disastrous consequences for the best.

In all things, whoever corrupts the idea men ought to form of perfection corrupts the good in its first sources. And to exaggerate it, this idea, to make it false, etc., is perhaps more dangerous than to mutilate it and cut into it while leaving it true and truncated.

April 11.

— Proud of the merit he knows or believes himself to possess.

April 12.

The weakness that brings back to order is worth more than the strength that draws away from it (sic); and what deprives us of excess perfects us.

Alas! If somehow you could break harsh fates! (Virgil). Add. De Ἐμαυτῷ

April 13.

Necessity can make a doubtful action innocent, but cannot make it praiseworthy.

In style, turns of phrase must connect as well as words. Voltaire said: “The connections must be short.” (The connections between sentences.) He spoke well.

April 16.

The French character is indeed to be communicative.

There are thoughts luminous in themselves. There are others that shine only where they are. One cannot, so to speak, move them without extinguishing them.

Or: of relief in painting. It cannot be moved. Relief in sculpture, on the contrary. Thus only thoughts with much body and form can be successfully isolated.

April 17.

Of the charm (or false charm) born of the disorder of ideas or objects in jesting (such as Voltaire’s.) That: it proves no excellence of soul.

April 18.

This division is not complete; for song itself can be the object of song. And if it then paints a soul in harmony, a talent that rises and descends again through a beautiful scale or a beautiful succession of sounds, an existence that makes merry and plays between earth and heaven, free of cares and given over to a thousand affections that follow one another of themselves, finally an unoccupied intelligence that flies at random like the bee, that stops along its way on a thousand objects without fixing on any, that caresses all the flowers and hums its pleasure.

This painting is as good as another; — and “who with a light voice passes from the grave to the gentle, from the playful to the severe”: that is the merit of a beautiful concerto.

Yes, every truth. And if a painting, whatever it may be, does not leave the soul at rest, it is because it is not perfect enough.

T209.Quietism remains the named religious question, without an added identification of a particular controversy or doctrinal claim. The conditional would have remains, and the best stays without a supplied class of people. Erected into principles retains the transformation of small errors into guiding rules.

T210.The good remains the thing corrupted in its sources. The displaced this idea remains after the first pronoun. Mutilate, cut into, and truncated preserve distinct physical interventions; perhaps keeps the comparison tentative.

T211.The dash and nominal description remain without an added main verb. Knows and believes are alternatives applied to his own merit, without asserting which is correct.

T584.The initial dash and nominal relative description remain without a supplied main verb; connoit has no visible circumflex.

T212.The source places an italic sic after s’en in s’en éloigne. The English keeps sic beside from it, where its antecedent is order, and retains draws away as the reflexive action. No object is supplied for brings back; depriving us of excess remains the means of perfection.

T213.The Latin exclamation is translated as an exclamatory if clause with could, retaining its conditional or wishful form. Harsh fates preserves the plural fata. Add. De and the Greek Ἐμαυτῷ remain as printed, without inventing an expansion, title, or connection. The Greek is a first-person reflexive dative meaning to or for myself; De can introduce of, from, or on, but its intended relation here is not settled. The narrow uncertainty about the Greek breathing mark is recorded separately. The parallel is Aeneid VI.882. The checked Latin has heu, includes an address to the young man, and orders the words fata aspera. Joubert’s different opening, omissions, word order, and exclamation remain; the following result is not supplied.

T214.Doubtful renders douteuse without turning uncertainty into established wrongdoing. Necessity can make the action innocent, while the second clause denies that it can make it praiseworthy.

T215.Turns of phrase renders tours, distinct from words and from the sentences specified in Joubert’s parenthesis. That explanation remains outside the Voltaire quotation. No external source for the quotation is supplied here.

T588.Phrazes retains z. The right-edge punctuation after mots is partly lost and provisionally read as a period before the capitalized Voltaire. The parenthetical specification remains outside the quotation.

T216.The national characterization remains Joubert’s assertion; communicative is not narrowed to mere talkativeness. Indeed retains en effet.

T217.Luminous and shine preserve the light image; moving and extinguishing remain linked. The qualification so to speak remains. This paragraph and the following relief comparison constitute one entry.

T589.An enlarged facsimile confirms scauroit without a visible cedilla. Elles mêmes remains unhyphenated. The second paragraph opens Ou followed by a colon and retains the later nominal contrast without a supplied verb.

T218.Relief retains the technical term across painting and sculpture. The opening Or and colon introduce an alternative formulation; the contrast with sculpture remains nominal. Body and form both qualify thoughts that can be isolated successfully.

T219.The opening Of construction and later That clause remain without governing assertions. Charm and false charm, and ideas and objects, remain alternatives. The source’s unusual period inside the parenthesis and colon after That are retained.

T590.The period before the closing parenthesis after Voltaire and the colon after Que remain. Both constructions lack an added governing clause.

T220.Song remains both subject and object, and the long And if construction has no supplied consequent. Scale retains échelle as both an ascending structure and a musical term. The repeated thousand, the affections following one another of themselves, and the unoccupied intelligence remain. Hums keeps the bee’s sound applied to pleasure.

T221.The relative who remains without an added antecedent. The quoted passage stays inline in the second paragraph, followed by a colon. Grave, gentle, playful, and severe retain the successive contrasts without reducing them to named pitches. The passage adapts L’Art poétique I.75–76. Boileau’s longer opening governs the infinitive Passer; Joubert abbreviates it and writes the finite passe. The shortened quotation remains inline in his discussion of a concerto.

T222.Yes, every truth remains a nominal fragment without a supplied predicate. Whatever it may be preserves the breadth of the painting example; not perfect enough is a matter of degree.

T592.The opening nominal fragment after Oui remains uncompleted.