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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

YEAR 1810

January 1.

He did not consult heaven, but heaven nevertheless guided him.

Ambitious and restless scholars who seek in their studies neither rest for their own mind nor rest for the mind of others.

January 2.

Grave peoples, frivolous peoples; thinking peoples; talking peoples; peoples governed by sages, and peoples governed by orators.

January 3.

It is always through forgetting or failing to observe some commonplace maxim that everything is endangered or perishes.

The first, as I was saying, “forgot that he was mortal”; and this one no longer remembers that one must be just and approachable.

January 5.

The Chinese carry politeness and gravity to the point of affectation. That is to say: they carry these things farther than the soul and its goodness inspire them. Their precepts of civility go beyond strict morality, and their manners go beyond all possible respect and goodwill. They stand outside the “proper mean” in this regard.

January 6.

From all cries and all complaints a vapor rises, and from this vapor a cloud forms, and from these heaped-up clouds come thunderbolts, storms, or at least foul weather that destroys everything.

January 7.

Most of the changes that take place in the teaching of the sciences and that we call progress are only a change in the way of conceiving how certain effects are brought about and how certain causes act.

Presumption brings as many errors as credulity and, as I said long ago, it is still better to err through another’s error than through one’s own.

In literature, it is the first flavors that form or deform taste. Or rather, in literature, flavors form the palate.

And colors form the complexion; I mean the colors of objects. Odors form the brain.

To give them the good and the bad: wait for discernment.

One must (as Laurent Joubert said) speaking of the human soul to the queen of Navarre “color it, perfume it, dye and imbue it.”

January 9.

Often men of imagination are parodists in their actions. They copy without intending to, in what they think, in what they say, in what they do, what has strongly occupied their attention, everything that shakes their memory can shake their will and influence their manners. This is a bad thing and a good thing.

Come now; and follow your error.

T1.The masculine pronouns follow the printed il and le without naming the person. Consulting and being guided remain distinct, as do the negative first clause and the adversative second clause. Heaven retains the lowercase ciel.

T106.The unnamed masculine singular pronouns and the two different imperfect verbs remain. The raised er in the date is retained.

T2.Scholars renders the historical Scavans broadly, without narrowing them to modern scientists. The nominal relative construction remains unfinished; rest and mind are repeated in both parts of the comparison.

T107.Scavans retains its printed c without a certified cedilla. The nominal relative formulation remains. Thin displaced horizontal traces beside the second le and above repos resemble the surrounding scan artifacts; no extra hyphen or accent is certified from them.

T3.Peoples remains a plural of communities rather than an enumeration of individuals. The successive nominal groups retain their punctuation pattern. Grave and frivolous, thinking and talking, and sages and orators remain distinct contrasts.

T108.The nominal series retains its comma and semicolon pattern, with no supplied finite verb.

T4.Commonplace renders triviale as familiar or ordinary, without declaring the maxim unimportant. Forgetting and failing to observe remain alternatives, as do being endangered and perishing.

T5.The first and this one remain unidentified. The quoted past forgetting differs from the present no longer remembers. Just and approachable retain the ethical and interpersonal senses; no particular ruler or maxim is supplied.

T6.The complete paragraph crosses from page 685 to page 686 and remains one pair. Gravity retains its link to the preceding grave peoples. The comparative ne does not negate the soul’s inspiration. Strict morality renders exacte morale; respect and goodwill both fall under possible. Only proper mean, the rendering of juste milieu, remains quoted. The cultural judgment is retained without identifying a particular Chinese text or interlocutor. Them in the inspiration clause resumes the two qualities, politeness and gravity, rather than naming their bearers as its object.

T110.The entire paragraph continues from page 685 onto page 686. The comparative ne and plural possibles are retained. Juste milieu alone is quoted.

T7.The vapor and cloud first appear in the singular, before the clouds gather in the plural. The repeated from clauses retain the progression. Thunderbolts, storms, and foul weather remain distinct, with at least marking the final lowering of degree.

T8.The plural changes leads to the singular a change, and only preserves the restriction. Effects being brought about and causes acting remain distinct. Progress alone receives the source emphasis.

T9.Presumption concerns overconfidence rather than a neutral hypothesis. The equal number of errors and the preference for another’s error remain. The earlier formulation is mentioned without inventing a date or linking an unverified prior entry.

T10.Flavors follows American spelling. Form and deform retain their shared root, and the explicit Or rather revision changes taste to palate without erasing the first formulation.

T113.Three physical paragraphs remain. The final paragraph juxtaposes the infinitive and imperative without supplying an antecedent for leur.

T11.Colors, complexion, and brain retain the bodily images. The clarification identifies colors of objects, and the final odor claim remains separate rather than being explained physiologically.

T12.The initial infinitive is followed by an imperative. The good and the bad keeps the two substantivized terms without supplying particular books, foods, or recipients. The plural them remains unidentified.

T13.The source names Laurent Joubert and the queen of Navarre without identifying a work or expanding the queen’s name. The attribution’s parenthesis and the placement of speaking remain. Dye and imbue it uses one shared English object where French la teindre et imbiber likewise shares the last object; the preceding two it forms remain. The quoted wording is translated from the notebook’s quotation, without an independent Laurent Joubert collation.

T114.The parenthetic attribution and the placement of en parlant remain. The quotation repeats la three times but does not supply another la before imbiber.

T14.Parodists preserves the unusual label for action rather than reducing it to simple imitation. The thought, speech, and action clauses remain, as does the source comma before the next finite clause. Shakes is repeated for memory and will, and the final bad thing and good thing retains that order.

T115.The native punctuation after attention is a comma; the succeeding finite clause is not separated by an editorial period. The three dans ce qu’ils clauses and repeated ébranler remain.

T15.Come now renders the exhortation Allons. The semicolon and following and remain; no addressee or special error is supplied.