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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

YEAR 1808

A little thought suffices for the mind, as a little light suffices for the eye’s pleasure. For every thought is a glimmer.

[…]eudi, May 19.

“Gaiety (says Villeterque) rests and refreshes judgment.” Yes, if it is gentle and moderate, or if it is artless and lively. But it leads good sense astray and destroys it if it is a mere habit of mind, if it comes from a way of seeing one has adopted rather than from a good humor one has received.

May […]0.

Moors of Granada. The Spaniards have ascribed their customs to them, I mean their own customs.

Of the pleasure the public feels at this spectacle (where it wants only to be amused), when it can grasp an image. Like a child to whom someone might toss prints — colored.

May 21.

It is not error that one must fear, it is evil. And it is not the true and the false that one must attend to before all else, but evil and good.

(P. M.-). Yes, too few words and a fabric of language too tightly woven, but also much meaning. When attention has pierced it, one finds breadth beneath this stippling etc.

Great things in miniature, a vast space foreshortened. (Foreshortening tends to be disagreeable, but it is useful.)

Voltaire. It is not by the rule of the ugly and the pretty that one must judge him [but] by that of good and evil. — Especially if one weighs him by the weight of the sanctuary. —

Style in which everything is continuous, as in a wall; and in which everything is bound and contained by a kind of band or shroud, like mummies and dead bodies.

May 22.

We should pride ourselves on sincerity and not on infallibility; all the more because it is within our power to be sincere, but not to have an accurate mind.

The breath of the mind is attention.

Imagination is taste. Reason has no appetites: truth and rightness suffice for it.

May 23.

Mʳ Cʳ is right. In the arts one should show only the foot, the hand, and the head. “Strip Heliogabalus completely naked, then place him between two pigs.” (See Journal de Paris, Monday, May 23, 1808.) — One can say, like M-rc+r, to any completely naked statue: — Place yourself between two pigs.

T273.Suffices is repeated for mind and eye. Glimmer renders lueur as light of limited brightness, maintaining the claim that every thought is such a light. The source’s glyph qualification for the unaccented lueur remains separately recorded.

T635.The second suffit is clipped at the right edge; its reading is qualified from suffi. Narrow horizontal artifacts above lueur do not certify a typographic accent or diaeresis; the unaccented reading is retained with this glyph qualification.

T274.Gaiety retains the connection to good humor. Artless renders naïve as unstudied or natural here, not credulous. A way of seeing one has adopted contrasts with a good humor one has received; the source does not identify a giver. The quoted claim remains attributed to Villeterque without identifying a particular work. The damaged weekday is not completed from the calendar.

T275.Their own customs refers to the Spaniards’ customs, ascribed to the Moors of Granada. The repeated possessive and the corrective I mean remain, rather than changing the second phrase into a claim about the Moors’ actual practices. The lost opening of the date is not supplied.

T276.The Of phrase and the following comparison remain fragments. The spectacle is not identified as a particular performance. Grasp retains saisir without deciding between apprehending an image and imaginatively catching it. Colored is kept after the dash, using American spelling.

T277.The first distinction is between error and evil; the second moves from the true and the false to evil and good. The order of the final pair is retained. Attend to renders s’occuper without turning the statement into a prohibition on inquiry.

T278.The opaque initials and punctuation (P. M.-). remain unexpanded. Fabric, piercing, stippling, and breadth retain the succession of textile and visual images. Much meaning renders beaucoup de sens without inserting a specific interpretation. The period practice of pointiller involved producing work with small points; no particular medium or later Pointillist movement is identified.

T639.The exact abbreviation (P. M.-). is confirmed in the facsimile and is not expanded. Two physical paragraphs remain. The second is a nominal formulation followed by a separate parenthesis; the first has no added comma before etc.

T279.The nominal formulation remains a separate paragraph within the entry. Foreshortened and foreshortening preserve the visual figure in raccourci while leaving its application to compressed expression available. The parenthesis retains both the disagreeable tendency and the usefulness. The period dictionary also records en raccourci for abridgment, alongside its use for perspective in painting.

T280.Pretty renders joli, distinct from beautiful. The editor’s supplied [mais] is represented by [but]. The weighing image and the unfinished conditional remain, including the terminal dash. The sanctuary is not identified as a particular place or a certified quotation source.

T640.The supplied [mais] retains its square brackets. The final Si clause and terminal dash remain without a conclusion.

T281.The opening Style remains a nominal construction. Bound and contained preserve the two participles. Band renders bandelette as a wrapping strip; wall, shroud, mummies, and dead bodies remain successive physical images without an added verdict.

T641.The opening Style remains a nominal relative construction. The initial m of momies is partly lost at the left edge; the displayed reading is qualified from omies.

T282.Pride ourselves renders se piquer without treating it as a physical action. An accurate mind renders esprit juste as right judgment rather than moral justice. The contrast concerns what is within our power, not an assurance that sincerity guarantees accuracy.

T283.Breath is retained as the defining image of attention. No explanatory comparison is added to the aphorism.

T284.Taste is identified with imagination, while reason is said to have no appetites. Rightness renders justesse without turning it into justice; truth remains distinct. The plural appetites and the claim of sufficiency remain.

T285.The abbreviations Mʳ Cʳ and M-rc+r remain unexpanded, including the raised letters and unusual signs. Heliogabalus is an English form of Héliogabale; no biographical identification is needed to complete the injunction. The quoted command and the later address to a statue remain distinct. Vid. becomes See, and the Journal de Paris reference and its date remain in the main paragraph. The cited newspaper passage was not independently located.

T642.The raised r letters in Mʳ Cʳ and the later opaque sequence M-rc+r are preserved without expansion. The Journal de Paris reference and its Monday May 23 date remain inside the main paragraph. Nud retains final d; place le and Place toi remain unhyphenated. The raised mark over the final e in nuë is compressed into a joined peaked shape; the diaeresis transcription remains qualified after independent enlarged-facsimile comparison: the two upper marks are compressed and joined, not a silently normalized accent.