Diotimos Reading Desk

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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

YEAR 1808

Crevier and Rollin. As for Crevier, if one should not take him as a model, one can at least take him as a guide. He perhaps speaks less well than his predecessor, but assuredly he shows better.

April 28.

The style of Tacitus. Suited to painting those black souls and those disastrous times.

— He has not known enough men, he has not read enough books, he has not seen enough days.

Metaphysics is beautiful, but metaphysical style is worth nothing. The habit of using abstract terms is bearable only in geometry. There it is in its place, it is fitting, it has almost more clarity than clearer words would have.

... and those books in which one breathes exquisite air.

April 29.

One must (sic) fit a work a hundred times better to the nature of the human mind than to what they call the state of society. There is something immutable in man, and that is why there are also immutable rules in the arts, and in works of art beauties that will always please or arrangements that will please only for a little while.

One says “the advance of style” and “...let him hasten toward the outcome.” […] work must advance neither too slowly nor too quickly. — Ince[…] the goddess was revealed.

— and the disastrous habit of accepting pleasures without gratitude.

April 30.

A book must yield movement or rest. And there […] results from this one only uneasiness of mind. In reading it, it f[…] to make it.

One must create matter or form, be piquant or smooth, astonish the mind or charm taste, stir or give rest to taste, mind, and soul. One must call or hold attention through brilliance and through clarity.

Folly becomes this one and wisdom that one.

There must be beautiful disorder or beautiful regularity. But it is easier to make regularity beautiful than disorder beautiful, because the latter repels beauty, and to introduce beauty into it, a power that is singular and that nature alone can give is necessary. It is therefore regularity that must always be given as a model to beginners. Only masters can set themselves another.

T236.The distinction between a model and a guide remains, as do the conditional if, the minimum at least, and perhaps before the comparison of speech. Shows retains montre without an added object or method of demonstration.

T237.The two nominal descriptions remain without a finite assertion. Black souls renders âmes noires as the moral image in the passage, without assigning a racial meaning or naming particular figures.

T605.Both nominal descriptions remain without a supplied finite verb.

T238.All three clauses retain He has not and enough. Seen enough days preserves the image rather than replacing it with an explicit age. The unnamed subject is not automatically identified with Tacitus in the preceding entry.

T239.The habit is the referent of the repeated it. English using makes the relation of habit to abstract terms explicit. Only geometry receives the exception; almost and the comparison with clearer words retain the paradoxical qualification.

T240.The ellipsis and dependent nominal phrase remain. Air is something breathed in the books, without an added explanation of atmosphere or style.

T241.The source prints faut, must, followed by an italic sic; the translation does not silently change it to vaut, is worth. A hundred times better therefore qualifies the fitting. The repeated immutable, future will please, and alternative of briefly pleasing arrangements remain. The unnamed they is not identified.

T242.Advance preserves marche and marcher. The quoted festinet is rendered as let him hasten, preserving a subjunctive without supplying its missing surrounding syntax. The gap before work is not filled with an article. Ince[…] remains the surviving Latin fragment; only patuit dea is translated as the goddess was revealed. A familiar longer Latin form is not restored into the damaged text. The parallel is Ars poetica 148, where Horace writes the indicative festinat in a longer sentence. Joubert’s subjunctive and reordered, shortened wording are retained. A second parallel is Aeneid I.405, where Venus is recognized as a goddess by her gait. The surviving Ince[…] is not completed from that parallel, and Virgil’s other words are not inserted.

T243.The opening dash, conjunction, and nominal construction remain. Gratitude renders reconnoissance in relation to pleasures received, without supplying a named giver or prayer.

T610.The end of the wrapped reconnoissance is partly lost at the right edge; its displayed form is qualified from the surviving beginning and next-line sance. The opening nominal phrase remains dependent.

T244.The gap after Et il is not supplied as ne or n’en. Only follows the surviving restrictive que in the damaged construction, without certifying the lost wording. In the last sentence, f[…] remains a French initial and missing verb ending, not an English word; possible faut is not inserted. To make it renders the surviving infinitive le faire without resolving what making the book while reading it would mean.

T245.Piquant and smooth retain the contrast of piquant and uni. The alternatives astonish or charm and stir or give rest remain; taste, mind, and soul are separate objects. Call and hold attention remain two actions, with brilliance and clarity both named as means.

T246.Becomes renders sied bien as fitting or suiting, not a change into something else. The two French demonstratives are feminine; no unnamed woman or feminine object is identified.

T247.Regularity and disorder remain alternative possibilities, but only regularity is prescribed as the beginner’s model. The French masculine lui refers to disorder; English repeats beauty and uses it for disorder to distinguish the referents without making grammatical gender a personal identity. English that is supplies a parallel relative form for singular and that nature alone can give, without changing the required power.

T613.The right-edge endings of plus, the wrapped puissance, nécessaire and aux are damaged and qualified from surviving forms and the following clauses. The coordination singulière et que remains unchanged.