Diotimos Reading Desk

Tap the page, move to the top or bottom edge, swipe down, or press Tab to reveal reading controls. Use the arrow keys or swipe sideways to turn pages.

← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

YEAR 1809

September […].

Sensibility. Comes from the senses. It is a physical quality. One has […]nsibilité and extreme sensibility when one has senses easy to […]mouvoir. One is good, tender, loving, compassionate through the soul alone. One is sensitive to bad treatment, one is touched by good. “I […]uis sensitive to what you have been so kind as to do for me” belongs to familiar, epistolary […]tyle. If in noble style one said that Titus was sensitive or that Cyrus showed himself sensitive to the kind reception Cambyses gave […]ui, it would be ridiculous. When one says or writes that a […]oète has no sensibility, one speaks and writes badly. Litté[…]aire style demands greater exactitude in designations. Say that they have no pathos, no grace, etc.

September […].

— from the most compact materialism to […]e most subtle spiritualism. And frankly, there is light and peace only in […]es latter regions. In short, it is better to be a sylph than a gnome.

September […]2.

We will not be responsible for what will have depended on our constitution. Aptitudes, powers are given only to the instrument and did not depend on us.

Morbidezze is well said. This pathos has something sickly about it. There are touching beauties in these works, but not a single solid and healthy beauty.

Symmetry, whether of words or of thoughts. Must be vague and only slightly marked in the sentence and in discourse. For they are imitations. The symmetries in discourse must not resemble the symmetries in a wardrobe; that is, be palpable and plainly perceptible. These kinds of symmetries suit only what is solid. One cannot apply to what is image what suits reality. That is why the pencil and the brush are better suited than the pen to prove the pleasures that must arise from drawing, because they conceal the lines better.

There is a supreme pleasure, not in doing well, but in doing as well as one can.

October 13. (Villeneuve.)

Repentance effaces the fault, but vice remains after repentance. (Repentance effaces the fault, but it does not destroy vice.)

October 18.

...Sermoni propiora. (Horace.) As there are verses that approach prose, there is prose that can approach verse. Almost everything that expresses a decided feeling or opinion has something metrical or measured about it. This kind depends not on art but on the influence and domination of character over talent.

October 19.

The false mind is the one that sees light where it is not, but not the one that does not see light where it is. Fabricator doli Epeus (Virg.) The eccentric mind and the false mind are two minds. The false mind wants to indoctrinate and delights in its imaginary superiority. The eccentric mind is only obstinate.

Those true philosophers who reject and do not bear the name, those true friends of wisdom, of secret and public order, the priests.

October 26.

(On the road to Auxerre.) and when a soul feels that it bears a beautiful body...

November 1.

Those families where no one warms themselves at the same fire—and no one eats at the same hours.

T98.Sensibility and sensitive retain the shared lexical field in this discussion of physical feeling and moral qualities. Touched is distinct from sensitive. The source’s damaged […]nsibilité, […]mouvoir, […]uis, […]tyle, […]ui, […]oète, and litté[…]aire remain French residues in English. Likely completions are sensibilité, sensibility; émouvoir, move; suis, am; style, style; lui, him; poète, poet; and littéraire, literary. None is certified as fully recovered. The quotation translates the French courtesy formula under discussion without replacing it with a different English formula. The noble-style examples remain hypothetical. Pathos and grace render pathétique and gracieux; no poem or ancient narrative is identified. Easy to preserves the intact faciles à construction; singular they in the final command leaves the hypothetical poet unspecified.

T99.Compact and subtle preserve the opposed densities in the image. Spiritualism concerns the spiritual rather than supplying a later séance movement. The French […]e and […]es remain damaged residues; possible le and ces are not restored. The last comparison remains sylph and gnome, with no mythological episode supplied.

T281.The September day is lost. The two damaged left-edge openings retain only e and es; le and ces are contextual possibilities, not certified readings. The opening prepositional fragment remains.

S1.Source editor’s annotationAfter a few leaves left blank, the notebook ends with a page of notes: “July 18, Seen M. Pinnubel, place du Chᵉʳ Duguet. Paris. Parish of St-Germain-l’Auxerrois. Known to M. Cimmetierre-Leterrier. — M. Pierce at Choisi. — Seen M. Borelly, to speak of it to M. de Fontanes. M. Borelly has received no reply. — Raymond, rue Saint-André. Grammar by M. Levizac.”

T100.Constitution renders organisation as the way one is constituted, in relation to aptitudes and powers, rather than an institution. The future-completed dependence and the following past dependence remain distinct. The instrument is not replaced with an explicitly named organ. One paragraph continues across pages 677–678.

T101.Beaunier’s one-paragraph annotation describes and quotes the notebook’s ending; its July 18 reference is distinct from the main September date. Names and abbreviations retain the source forms and qualified accents. The compressed place du Chᵉʳ Duguet is retained in French without settling whether place indicates a location or substitution. Seen preserves the clipped journal form of Vu, and Known to the unexpressed subject of Connu de. Grammar is not assigned an expanded book title. No calendar year, address number, identity, or reply is invented.

T283.The entire source annotation is one physical paragraph. The July 18 reference belongs to the quoted notes, not a new main date. The abbreviated er after Ch is raised. Pinnubel, Cimmetierre-Leterrier, Pierce, Choisi, Borelly and Levizac retain the printed name forms without expansion or substitution from known identities. Fine marks above the e letters in Cimmetierre and Borelly are entangled with scan artifacts, so the absence of a certified accent remains qualified. The left-edge beginnings of page, Paris, the second line-broken Borelly and de before Levizac are partly abraded; the retained readings are qualified from surviving portions. II.14 is a printer’s signature.

T102.The Italian Morbidezze is retained in the text; it concerns softness or delicacy, while Joubert’s following sickly supplies his adverse evaluation. Pathos is not itself replaced by morbidity. Touching beauties remain distinct from the single solid and healthy beauty denied to these unnamed works.

T103.The opening and following Must remain without an added subject, and they preserves the source’s masculine plural without forcing a single antecedent. Wardrobe renders armoire as solid furniture. Prove follows the clearly printed prouver; the text is not emended to procurer, procure, despite the unusual relation between proving and pleasures. Pencil, brush, pen, and lines retain the technical image, and drawing renders dessin without reducing the argument to decorative design.

T104.Well is not assigned an exclusively moral sense. The contrast preserves the limit of one’s own capacity, and supreme retains the strength of the pleasure claimed.

T105.Effaces recurs for the fault. Vice’s remaining after repentance is restated in the parenthesis as repentance’s failure to destroy it; the two formulations remain one paragraph. The printed Villeneuve location stays with the date.

T285.The parenthetical alternative is retained. Villeneuve appears beside the printed date and is not supplied as a separate body paragraph.

T106.The Latin means nearer to ordinary speech. Its opening ellipsis and attribution remain. Can preserves the possibility assigned to prose, while metrical and measured remain distinct. Decided qualifies the feeling or opinion, not a named speaker. The final contrast concerns character’s influence and domination over talent, without assigning a school or completing the Latin quotation. The words occur in Horace’s Satires I.4.42, where he distinguishes verse near ordinary speech from the higher claims of poetry. Joubert’s abbreviated quotation is not completed.

T286.The opening ellipsis and printed attribution are retained. Décidés has the masculine plural ending after sentiment ou une opinion.

T107.False mind concerns the misplaced perception of light in Joubert’s definition; it is not simply replaced by dishonesty. The repeated light, two minds, and imaginary superiority remain. The Latin means Epeus, maker of the deceit; the printed attribution Virg. and absence of a period before it are retained. Eccentric renders bizarre in contrast with false, and only obstinate keeps the limiting judgment. Aeneid II.264 has doli fabricator Epeos in the account of the warriors emerging from the wooden horse. Joubert reverses the noun order and prints Epeus; both features remain.

T287.No period is printed between the italic Epeus and the following parenthetical attribution. In complait the raised i-mark is compact and dot-like; no distinct circumflex is certified, so the plain-i reading remains qualified.

T108.The whole remains nominal. English lets the name serve the coordinated reject and do not bear, following the compressed French en rejettent... n’en portent pas le nom; it does not insert a separate object in the French. Secret and public order remain the paired terms, without substituting a political theory or naming particular priests.

T288.In the French source, the compressed en rejettent construction is retained without supplying an object; the whole remains nominal.

T109.The road circumstance stays inside the paragraph, followed by lowercase and. Bears preserves porte rather than turning the soul into something passively housed by the body. The when clause remains unfinished.

T289.The opening circumstance is part of the paragraph; lowercase et and the dependent lorsque clause end in an ellipsis.

T110.The initial Those families remains nominal. English repeats no one after the dash to preserve the two parallel negatives without creating a double negation. The same hours and same fire retain the shared domestic measures; no family is identified.

T290.The er of 1ᵉʳ is raised in the date. The nominal opening and the dash before the second negative clause remain.