Diotimos Reading Desk

Tap the page, move to the top or bottom edge, swipe down, or press Tab to reveal reading controls. Use the arrow keys or swipe sideways to turn pages.

← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

YEAR 1808

Nicolle. One must not seek form there, but matter, which is exquisite. One must read him with a practical desire.

(See above.) Finally, a kind of musical instinct that wanders and plays.

The comparison is not just. It is indispensable that verse say something. But music may say nothing; it is enough that it sound good.

Of measures suited to expressing movement and Of those suited to expressing only emotions.

April […].

“The best” (and the best alone) “is immortal,” as […]e-brun said.

That — there has not been a single literary century whose prevailing taste was not sick. That the sickness of present taste is softness. That of the taste that preceded it was aridity. (People then loved what occupies the mind in reading more than what flatters taste properly so called.) That the success of excellent authors consists in making healthy works agreeable to sick tastes.

Horace contents the mind. He does not make taste happy. Virgil satisfies reflection as much as taste; and the remembrance of his verses is as delicious as reading them.

Taste is more closely bound to the Soul than the mind is. I mean that the soul takes more part in the operations of the mind and that its pleasures touch it most closely.

April […]1.

... and if credulity disposes toward faith, and absurdity toward mysteries.

— These sentences weary. Because they do not enter the memory as easily as verses helped by their regular measures; and yet one retains some parts or some members of them despite oneself. One can neither forget them nor remember them without labor. That is what makes them wearying.

What we call flicker comes precisely from the fact that in an object there are bright points that do not touch and are scattered.

April 22.

Duties! Those are the truths it matters to us to know.

April 24.

Wise and truly philosophical doubt (if it existed) would therefore consist in extinguishing (or rather veiling) the lights that dazzle us, to judge by an organ of the mind other than that of its sight.

T223.Nicolle retains the source’s spelling. Matter and form remain distinct; practical desire preserves the unusual phrase rather than replacing it with a named moral program. The movement from there to him is retained.

T224.See above translates the italic Latin Vide supra; only the words and period, not the parentheses, carry the emphasis. The backward direction remains without an invented exact cross-reference. Finally and the following nominal description are retained.

T594.The Latin words alone are italic inside roman parentheses. The nominal relative description remains without a main predicate.

T225.Just retains juste as a judgment of the comparison’s fitness. Verse must say something, while music may say nothing: the modality remains distinct. The final sound good is a sufficient condition, not an added account of musical meaning.

T226.Measures remains a broad technical word without specifying a meter or time signature. The two Of phrases remain nominal, with the internal capital in the second. Only qualifies emotions in the latter phrase.

T595.De retains its internal capital after et; both coordinated nominal descriptions remain without a governing clause.

T227.The quotation remains divided by Joubert’s parenthetical restriction to the best alone. The damaged surname remains […]e-brun without a restored initial or identified person. The day is likewise not completed from its surroundings.

T596.The damaged day retains only disconnected traces, insufficient to certify a numeral. The quoted assertion is divided by the roman parenthesis. Only e-brun survives at the left continuation edge; the beginning is not supplied. Le-brun is a possible name reading, not a certified restoration.

T228.The repeated dependent That formulations remain without a governing assertion. Softness and aridity are distinct diagnoses; sick and healthy preserve the medical metaphor. The parenthetical comparison separates occupation of the mind from flattery of taste.

T597.The repeated Que constructions remain without an added governing phrase. An enlarged facsimile confirms double l in mollesse. Left-edge losses affect Celle, qui, the wrapped ment and bles; the displayed forms are qualified from surviving endings and continuations.

T229.Contents and satisfies preserve the two verbs. Happy and delicious keep the sensory and affective judgments. Remembrance of the verses remains as delightful as their reading, without changing the comparison to recollection being better.

T230.Soul preserves the first capital, followed by lowercase soul. The French repeats esprit in the explanation, despite the opening comparison favoring taste; mind is not changed to taste to reconcile the argument. In its pleasures touch it, the pleasures are read here as those of the mind and the object as the soul.

T231.The opening ellipsis and dependent if remain. No person is supplied as the object of disposes, and no consequent is invented. Faith and mysteries remain different terms; the damaged numerical day is recorded separately.

T600.Only the terminal day digit 1 is secure; the preceding damaged trace is not completed from chronology. The initial ellipsis and conditional coordination remain without an expressed consequent.

T232.Because remains a separate dependent sentence. Parts and members preserve the two descriptions of what remains in memory; the source’s singular quelque before plural membres is not imitated as an English agreement error. Neither forgetting nor remembering is possible without labor.

T233.Flicker renders papillotage through the stated visual effect of bright, disconnected points. The optical explanation remains in the same two-paragraph entry as the wearying sentences. No particular painting, fabric, or printing technique is identified. The period term also described dazzling, tiring effects in painting and, by extension, an excess of brilliant expressions in writing.

T234.Duties remains the exclamation and the referent of the truths. The first-person plural is retained; no particular list of obligations is added.

T235.The parenthetical if it existed qualifies the kind of doubt itself. Would therefore consist remains conditional, and or rather marks the correction from extinguishing to veiling. The other organ of the mind is not identified.