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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

YEAR 1805

February […]8.

The swelling of proper words is quite another thing from the swelling of grand words. As that of contemplation is not that of declamation. The first is rather enthusiasm, for it comes from emotion.

“Valor (Plato says in the Laches) is the knowledge of terrible things.” Thus he would have said that temperance, chastity, and sobriety are the knowledge of pleasures that can please too much. At the end of the dialogue Plato intimates that valor, being the knowledge of terrible things or things to be feared, includes by this very definition all the other virtues; for pleasure can indeed be numbered among terrible things. But he does not explain himself clearly enough on this point.

The true subject of the Laches is this: that the knowledge of terrible things is of pleasures as well as dangers. (And, in the interlocutors, a portrait of Athenian life.)

In the Apology, the character and habits of Socrates. — In the First Alcibiades: in order to govern, to know God. In the Second Alcibiades: to trust the gods. In the Eutyphon: not to believe that what is not just pleases heaven, unless heaven declares it. In the Crito: respect for the laws. In the Phaedo: that death is a good.

February 27.

This is Plato’s fault: detours when they are unnecessary. Explaining what is clear. He muddies clear water, like children, to give himself the pleasure of seeing it settle and grow pure again. In truth, this is to establish his character’s nature more fully; but it is also to sacrifice the play to the actor and the plot to the mask. (See the Laches.)

Friday, March 1.

(In the orchard not yet green.)

Racine had his genius in taste, like the ancients.

Cicero. No writer had so much temerity in expression. He is thought circumspect and almost timid: no language was ever less so. His eloquence is clear; but it flows in great surges and in cascades when it must.

Whether God speaks to the soul during sleep is something we do not know.

In philosophi[cal] eloquence one must come as close as one can to civil eloquence. (Of popular eloquence, all brevity and all energy.)

March 2.

They (the laws) are not in fact capable of doing all good things, but some. Nor is philosophy either, nor even religion, which is above everything.

What one begins and does not finish serves as a stone for some other undertaking.

And that indeed the laws of heaven and the laws of earth and even the laws of the underworld are sisters.

Sunday, March 3.

P—r—n. And “most desired object.” He is a poet who played his jaw harp well. This R—bb—of whom some mention has been made belonged to his school. A school of a moment.

“Art is to hide art.” Yes, in everything that must resemble nature. But is there nothing that must resemble art and consequently show it?

T211.Emphase is repeated on both sides of the contrast. Here swelling preserves rhetorical amplification while allowing one form to arise from emotion and enthusiasm; the wholly pejorative bombast used for Buffon would prejudge this distinction. Proper words means apt or exact words, not proper names. The date preserves only the visible final 8.

T416.The date retains visible 8 without inferring its lost beginning. Secure clipped grands, déclamation and d’émotion are restored.

T212.Science is knowledge in the philosophical definition, not modern experimental science. Valor and the pleasures that please too much preserve Joubert’s wording. The close of the Laches examines how knowledge of fearful things expands into knowledge of good and evil and all virtue; Joubert’s emphasis on dangerous pleasure is his interpretation, not a new sentence inserted into Plato.

T213.The titles identify works rather than new notebook headings. Beaunier prints Eutyphon, retained here instead of silently substituting Euthyphro. These compressed descriptions remain Joubert’s readings, including the qualification unless heaven declares it. No explanatory verbs are supplied to the nominal descriptions.

T214.The water is deliberately muddied so it can settle and become pure again. The theatrical sequence distinguishes the character’s nature, the actor, the play, the plot, and the mask. Fable is plot here, not an independent fable with a moral.

T418.The date returns to 27 février after the preceding damaged February dates. Secure clipped et, son and fable are restored from visible remains. Printed initial A has no accent.

T215.The Latin places the writer in an orchard not yet green. It remains a separate parenthetical paragraph with its source italics, not an added heading or part of the date.

T216.The terse en goût is retained as in taste, locating Racine’s genius in this faculty without replacing it by merely having good taste. The ancients remain the comparison.

T217.Temerity keeps the boldness bordering on rashness in témérité. Eloquence is clear yet surges and cascades; the clarity is not opposed to movement. Language remains distinct from the writer whose timidity is presumed.

T218.The English reproduces the incomplete word and editorial completion as philosophi[cal] for philosophi[que]. Civil eloquence is the eloquence of public or ordinary civic affairs, not simply polite speech. The parenthesis retains popular eloquence’s brevity and energy.

T421.Printed philosophi[que] retains source-supplied brackets. Secure clipped autant and toute are restored.

T219.All good things and some retain the quantifier contrast. Philosophy and even religion share the stated limitation; religion’s superiority is nevertheless preserved in the last clause. No omitted achievement is supplied to the second sentence.

T422.The compressed Ni coordination is retained without supplying its omitted predicate. Secure clipped biens and qui are restored.

T220.The unfinished work serves as a stone, keeping the building material rather than turning the image into a generic lesson or opportunity.

T221.The opening And that remains a dependent fragment. The laws of heaven, earth, and the underworld are personified as sisters. The underworld renders plural enfers without assigning a particular theology to the fragment.

T424.Printed que en is not contracted. The opening Et que remains dependent without a supplied governing clause.

T222.P—r—n. and R—bb— are left unexpanded. Guimbarde is the small instrument held at the mouth and sounded by a vibrating tongue. The abrupt quotation and the school of a moment remain; no specific poem or lasting school is invented.