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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

YEAR 1809

January 5.

There are minds that want their attention chained.

January 7.

X... never has an illusion that comes to them from the heart.

January 14.

General grammar yields no precept, nothing of practical use—only a few observations—and matter for chatter.

January 21.

The passions have their colored lenses; reason has its clear lenses; wisdom too has its prisms, whose effect consists in beautifying what is beautiful and making ugly what is ugly. An illusion better than simple reality, for in practice it leads us to a more perfect rectitude. It makes us distinguish the moral goal more clearly, the true point of aim.

January 23.

... minds that entered into study and meditation with a spirit of destruction and ruin, in short, with bad inclinations.

— the heart romantic, but not the head.

January 29.

Thus Rollin shines through his morals, and so does Fénelon; Plato through intellect, J.-J. Rousseau through the passions. The former have an imperceptible effect; the last moves us powerfully. They have ethos. he, pathos.

What we call pathos is a failed appeal to emotion, a false appeal to emotion; that is not the sense in which it should be understood here.

Not to know how necessary many words are is to be ignorant of an important truth.

January […]1.

— because the sublime gives a useful pleasure.

“To be incapable of religion” was, among the ancients, one of the characteristic marks of irrationality.

February 14.

One could easily parody these Gentlemen and ask, for example: — Sir, what is the degree of enjoyment and happiness that... a cultivated man can obtain in your department? Is there some conflict of interests, prejudices, and resentments... from which a bitterness might arise that disturbs social life? Is civilization advanced among the bourgeois? Do the inhabitants of Paris who have retired among you abuse the advantages that the superiority of their civilization, their cunning, and the authority their fine appearance gives them can offer them?

Jargon. What it is. A language fit only to express a semblance of ideas one has formed for oneself, and that can suit nothing clear or eminently literary. (One ought to define it better. Of jargon and technical words: differences.)

Whoever consults the light that is within them (as within all the others) excels at judging well the objects that this light illuminates.

T1.Chained preserves the constraint in enchaîne; the minds themselves desire it. The sentence does not identify who is to hold their attention.

T2.The anonymous X... remains unexpanded. Never and the origin in the heart remain distinct; the statement does not deny every possible illusion. Singular them preserves the unspecified gender of the anonymous referent.

T3.General grammar retains the historical term rather than naming a particular grammar book. Of practical use renders usuel; chatter preserves the dismissive babil. The interrupted sequence of precept, observations, and matter remains. The term concerns principles common to languages, as distinguished from the grammar of a particular language; this distinction is explicit in the Académie’s 1835 definition, while its 1798 entry already records the term.

T4.Lenses, prisms, and point of aim preserve the optical and directional imagery. Clear renders blancs in contrast with colored lenses; its literal color word is white. Beautifying and making ugly retain the repeated beautiful and ugly. The nominal An illusion sentence remains within this paragraph; rectitude retains the moral and straightness associations.

T200.The facsimile confirms consiste à embellir and nous induit. The right-margin line breaks clip parts of qui, simple and parfaite; their readings are qualified from surviving beginnings and following-line endings. The nominal Illusion formulation remains a separate sentence within this paragraph.

T5.The opening ellipsis and dependent description remain without a governing assertion. Minds and spirit render the repeated esprit in its respective uses; destruction and ruin remain separate.

T201.Two physical paragraphs remain without an intervening asterisk. The initial ellipsis and lowercase le after the dash remain; no governing subjects or verbs are supplied.

T6.The heart and head remain a nominal fragment. Romantic renders romanesque as disposed toward the world or imaginings of romance, without assigning a literary movement or supplying an unnamed person.

T7.Morals renders mœurs, distinct from intellect and passions. The former remains plural before the singular last, without redistributing Joubert’s categories. Ethos and pathos retain the Greek rhetorical terms as English loanwords, broadly character and emotion; the precise accent qualification remains in the French source note. The period followed by lowercase he preserves the source’s unusual punctuation.

T8.The French contrasts the word pathos with un pathétique manqué and un faux pathétique. English repeats appeal to emotion for pathétique, keeping the pejorative use distinct from the preceding rhetorical pathos. The second paragraph remains within the same entry. The later Académie entry of 1835 likewise distinguishes affected emotional display from the rhetorical sense.

T9.Words renders vocables as lexical items. The negative opening and the degree of necessity remain; no particular vocabulary is identified.

T10.The lowercase because clause remains dependent after the dash. The sublime and a useful pleasure retain their conjunction of aesthetic and practical value. The damaged day is recorded separately without completion.

T204.The left edge of the day is lost; only final 1 is secure. No preceding digit is reconstructed. The opening dash and dependent causal clause remain.

T11.The quoted incapacity remains the property being characterized. Irrationality renders the unusual irrationabilité as lack of rational capacity; no particular ancient author or species is supplied.

T12.The proposed parody retains its questions, two ellipses, and the capital in Gentlemen. Department preserves the French administrative term; the particular department and addressee remain unnamed. Bourgeois retains the social designation without assigning a modern class theory. Retired among you need not mean retirement from employment. Fine appearance renders bonne mine as outward bearing or looks; the final relative assigns the resulting authority to that appearance.

T13.Semblance of ideas renders apparence d’idées without turning it into clear ideas. The parenthesis in French has two occurrences of le around mieux; the second is qualified because of scan damage. English uses a single object pronoun and reads mieux comparatively as better. The source construction remains unchanged in French. The final comparison of jargon and technical words remains nominal. The singular feminine faite agrees with apparence: it is the semblance that one has formed for oneself.

T14.The light is said to be within everyone, and its illumination limits the objects judged well. Singular them does not identify a particular person. Excels and well both remain, as does the repeated light.