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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

YEAR 1808

May 7.

That their philosophical spirit has been only a spirit of contradiction applied to conduct and laws. — That the spirit of assent is brought about by study, experience, and knowledge, which make known the reasons for and advantages of the shared agreement of all. — That the spirit of contradiction requires no work, that it keeps one from any profound study, that it depends on the will, that it is convenient, but disastrous, but destructive. — That, on the contrary, the spirit of assent requires more intelligence, more examination, more work, more knowledge; that it is arduous, but useful, but beneficent, preserving, repairing.

Without some severity in conduct, one does not have enough severity of mind to...

May 9.

Socrates, in Plato’s Symposium, said to Alcibiades: “The eyes of the mind grow keener at the age when the eyes of the body weaken, and you are still far from that age.” What grace in […] contradiction! Greek politeness, or at least Athenian politeness, was superior to ours.

The nothingness of glory. Even God goes unrecognized: and who son[…] of Voltaire? few, and even those few not often. — Close your theaters and suppress your newspapers? how few will know Racine!

May 10.

To be the soul of a body, but not its head, is a noble ambition.

The excellence of the mind lies entirely in its quality, and not in its quantity; in its patience and in its constancy, rather than in its strength and in its fire.

The Christian religion treats men as children, and i[…] are so.

In everything, to be the soul of many things, and to be at the head of nothing.

The body obeys the soul when the soul obeys God; and conversely “It being quite reasonable (Cardinal de Richelieu said) that c[…] which fails in duty to its superior should be tormented by what is below it.” (See Perfection chrétienne, page 4, quarto.)

May 11.

And one cannot say how sensual the mind has become (in literature). One always wants some beauty or some lure in the most austere writings; and one confuses what pleases with what is beautiful.

May 15.

Laziness awaiting inspiration.

May 18.

That, in the study of languages, it is important not to learn etymology before usage.

T261.The successive dependent That statements and repeated but are retained. The shared agreement of all translates the italic Latin communis omnium consensus without treating it as an identified quotation. Preserving and repairing render conservateur and réparateur as effects of assent, without assigning a modern political label. The paragraph continues across pages 657–658.

T623.The repeated Que constructions and dashes remain without an added governing phrase. The italic Latin retains its printed case endings. One paragraph continues across pages 657–658. Left-edge damage affects several initial letters on page 657, and the right-edge endings of plus and conservateur on page 658; the displayed readings are qualified from surviving beginnings and continuations.

T262.Severity is repeated rather than replaced with different qualities. The sentence remains suspended at to, corresponding to the unfinished pour.

T263.Symposium is the conventional English title for Plato’s Banquet. The quoted reply is translated from Joubert’s French, including the comparison of bodily and mental sight and the distancing phrase about age. The lost wording before contradiction is not supplied; Greek politeness is narrowed by Joubert himself to Athenian politeness. The parallel is Symposium 219a, where Alcibiades reports Socrates’s ironic reply. The checked Greek and Cousin’s French preserve the contrast between sharpening mental sight and weakening bodily sight; Joubert’s own plural eyes and phrasing are retained. Cousin is a later comparison, not an identified source used by Joubert.

T625.The right edge loses the ends of yeux, s’affaiblissent and athénienne; those readings are qualified from surviving beginnings and their continuations. The space after dans is damaged: an article such as la is possible but not certified, so the explicit gap is retained.

T264.The surviving son[…] remains French residue in the English, not an English word. Songe, thinks, is a contextual possibility, not a certified recovery of the lost ending. Goes unrecognized renders méconnu without changing the statement to God being nonexistent. The questions and subsequent lowercase few and how remain, including the question mark after the imperatives.

T265.Body, soul, and head preserve the connected metaphor. The body is not identified as a particular institution or group. The contrast concerns animating it and being its head.

T266.Quality and quantity, patience and constancy, strength and fire remain the paired distinctions. Fire is retained as the figure rather than replaced with brilliance or enthusiasm.

T267.The surviving i[…] is a French pronoun fragment, not an English word. Ils is likely in context, but its missing ending is not restored in either text. Are so renders le sont; the preceding children remains its complement.

T629.Only the opening i of the pronoun after et survives at the right edge. Ils is contextually likely before le sont, but the lost ending is not certified.

T268.The two infinitives remain without an added finite subject or imperative. The soul and head figures recur, and the contrast between many things and nothing remains.

T630.The e of de is lost at the right edge; the displayed reading is a qualified restoration from d before the next-line rien. The infinitives remain without an independent finite governing clause.

T269.The quotation retains its dependent It being construction. The surviving c[…] remains French residue. Which, its, and it follow a neutral reading supported by the body-and-soul context; the damaged word could also allow a personal construction, which remains unresolved. No lost letters are supplied. The exact quoted passage in Richelieu has not been independently located. The abbreviated Vid. is translated See, and in 4° as quarto. The printed reference remains part of the main paragraph, not a source footnote.

T631.The right margin clips the continuation after au contraire and after the c beginning the quoted referent; no further punctuation or ending of that referent is supplied. Ce or celui cannot be certified from the surviving c alone. Dessous spans a damaged line end; its reading is qualified from des and the next-line sous. Estant, Cardinal and the parenthetical reference remain roman; the reference is part of the main paragraph, not apparatus.

T270.Sensual keeps sensuel as Joubert’s characterization of the literary mind. Lure renders appât, while the final distinction preserves what pleases and what is beautiful as different judgments. The initial And and parenthetical restriction to literature remain.

T271.The nominal participial fragment remains without a finite assertion. Laziness is the subject awaiting inspiration.

T633.The nominal participial fragment remains without a finite predicate.

T272.The initial That remains dependent without an invented governing phrase. Before preserves the order of learning rather than making a claim that etymology should never be learned.

T634.Étimologie retains the printed i. The ending of apprendre is partly lost before next-line dre; its reading is qualified. Que remains without a supplied governing phrase.