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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

YEAR 1808

October 7.

Father André the metaphysician. He pleases attention, but he escapes memory. One can never remember what he thinks and what he has said.

October 10.

They blame Plato for banishing poets from his republic, and they banish religion from it! Philosophy, unless it is blind and deaf and ignorant, must admit religion as a useful enchantment.

Anyone who goes to the opera and will not tolerate Mass is only a mind given to prepossessions, to narrow views, and to petty reasoning.

— Anyone who goes to the opera and cannot tolerate Mass is (at the moment when he acts this way) only a mind given to narrow views and petty reasoning. He has more will than intelligence, more passions than lights. In seeking truth, he has stopped along the road, at the inn and in the dead end of prepossessions. It would have been better for him to keep following the highway of prejudices.

Poetry is useful only for the pleasures of our soul; religion has enchantments useful for our conduct; it gives us both happiness and virtue.

The age thought it was making progress as it walked into chasms.

October 14.

Jacobinism is a matter of temperament. And it exists in every circumstance that puts this kind of temperament at ease and allows it to develop.

October 15.

Monarchist, because moralist.

And these tutors of the human race, and even these teachers of the young who compose and publish books in which they speak of passions and sensual pleasures not as men who know them, but as men who delight in them.

To love basely is to love against one’s will or to love with a love one condemns, for, after all, everything that is willed is noble, as I said in my dream.

October 19.

“Dissent and dissension.” Everything does indeed depend on clearly distinguishing these two things and these two words. There must be dissent between religions and there must be no dissension.

October 21.

Mme de Sévigné said that “the pen always has a large part in what we write.” And the tongue too, in what we say.

Force alone can unbind oaths. Or: oaths have bonds that nothing but force can break.

October 22.

Words often do not have the same harmony for the ear and for the mind.

T383.Father renders p. Attention is pleased while memory is escaped, preserving the parallel personifications. The present thinks and the past has said remain distinct.

T384.The unnamed They remains. His republic belongs to the statement about Plato; it is not automatically formatted as a verified book title. Blind and deaf and ignorant preserve the repeated conjunction, and useful enchantment remains the proposed basis for admitting religion.

T385.Will not tolerate preserves the volition in ne veut pas souffrir, distinct from cannot in the next paragraph. Prepossessions renders préventions here; narrow views and petty reasoning retain the separate criticisms. The Mass is not named as a particular service.

T708.Three physical paragraphs remain in a single block across 666–667; no asterisk separates the two page 667 paragraphs. Both Quiquonque forms retain qu in the second syllable. The first formulation has veut, the second peut. Vallu has double l, cul-de sac has only the first hyphen, and poësie retains its diaeresis. The repeated et in the final clause remains.

T386.This revision is a separate paragraph within the same entry and begins on page 667. Cannot preserves peut, and the parenthesis limits the judgment to the moment of acting this way. Lights retains lumières as intellectual illumination. Inn, road, dead end, and highway preserve the extended journey image. Prepossessions for préventions is distinguished from prejudices for préjugés; the text’s different valuations are not reconciled.

T387.This third paragraph remains in the same source block. Conduct renders mœurs, distinct from the soul’s pleasures. Both happiness and virtue represents the French repeated et… et, preserving the two benefits.

T388.The age renders le siècle without fixing its duration to exactly one century. Thought it was making progress preserves the mistaken self-assessment; chasms renders précipices as the destination in the image.

T389.Temperament is repeated, and the conditions for its ease and development remain part of Joubert’s assertion. The French lowercase jacobinisme becomes the conventional capitalized English Jacobinism; no named adherent is supplied.

T390.The paired nouns remain a fragment without an invented I am or named subject. Moralist retains the sense of someone concerned with morals rather than adding a claim of moral superiority.

T710.The nominal formulation remains without an expressed subject or finite copula.

T391.The repeated And and the dependent description remain without a main predicate. Sensual pleasures renders voluptés, distinct from passions. Knowing them and delighting in them preserve the source’s stated difference.

T711.The nominal relative construction remains without a main predicate. Connaissent retains the printed ai, unlike neighboring historical oi forms; même remains singular.

T392.Basely renders lâchement with its loss of nobility; against one’s will and a love one condemns remain alternatives. Willed preserves voulu rather than changing it to virtuous or approved. My dream remains Joubert’s own reference without identifying an external work.

T393.Dissent names disagreement of judgment; dissension adds discord or conflict. The related words remain distinct in both the initial quoted pair and the claim about religions. No particular religions or policy are supplied.

T394.Mme remains the French form of address. Pen renders plume; tongue preserves the bodily instrument and the possible association with language in langue. The second phrase remains without a repeated finite verb. The English quotation takes its period inside the closing mark under American house style. Compare Sévigné’s letter to Mme de Grignan of January 5, 1676 (Monmerqué, IV, letter 488), where plural pens contribute to the verbiage filling their letters. Joubert gives a shorter, differently worded formulation; the tongue phrase is not a verified continuation of that letter.

T395.Force repeats without deciding whether the context means physical strength, coercion, or another compelling power. Unbind, bonds, and break preserve the linked image. The alternative Or is retained without replacing the two formulations with one.

T396.Ear and mind remain distinct recipients of harmony. Often preserves the qualification rather than making the difference universal.