Diotimos Reading Desk

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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

YEAR 1810

To be mistaken and to be undeceived. Those who are easily mistaken and undeceived have little to fear.

January 10.

After all, what would we not say of the excellence of a condition whose corruption consists in resembling all the others?

For it is a crime for a priest to be only a good man and to allow himself the pleasures permitted to men of the world and even to virtuous men of the world.

Philosophers who have not known religion!!

January 11.

—so that the soul may be colored, perfumed, imbued by it at once and forever, like white wool dyed three times.

January […]3.

Hypocrites. Born with a certain fear of evil, but with little […]iscernement or with little taste for good. More doctrine than […]onscience. Where the rule does not speak, they have no guide and do not know what honor, exquisite probity, greatness of soul are.

January […]4.

A bigot is not a man without faith, without law, without religion; on the […]ontraire, he has much of all this, but he lacks conscience. […]e heaven that enlightens him from without has not placed in him an extremely vivid inté[…]ieure light [blank] his designs, which one must adore; he is […]e master of his gifts.

So the bigot who sometimes at the peril of his life would not violate […]n religious point of the law will violate without scruple, or at least with […]eu resistance, this or that point of morals or honor. He will not […]iolera the abstinence from meat, but he will not abstain, either for […]ui or for his own, from offices and dignities of which he is and they […]ont unworthy, incapable. He knows neither himself nor others, they are only his affections; he is just only for the Altar...

God has placed his rule outside him, so he must be its slave.

January 20.

Nicole is a Pascal without style.

One likes reading translations all the better when one understands the languages. Translations then relieve and exercise at the same time, […]ar one can compare.

The same holds for extracts when one has read the whole books.

January […]1.

Yes, the same cloth as that of Pascal’s Pensées, as Mme de Sévigné said; but not so well cut, so well gathered, so well pleated, so well embroidered, so well used, and so well displayed.

When the sounds of instruments resemble the sounds of the voice and the harmonies of voices joined together resemble the harmonies of instruments.

There are times that have no historians because they have no history; others whose history is tangled and confused because the events have been so: and events are confused when they do not arise from one another, when they have no known and natural causes.

Historians who do not have the mood or character of their subject, who speak of a serene time in a dark style and would make their characters fail to recognize the times in which they lived; finally, who place true facts beneath a false sky and outside their real landscapes.

All beautiful histories reveal a serene mind: animo deducta sereno (Ovid).

February 1.

Simple reasons whose truth or falsity one can discover at first glance. Everything complicated is tangled.

T16.The two opening infinitives and their repetition remain. Easily applies to both being mistaken and being undeceived; little to fear is not strengthened into nothing to fear.

T17.Condition renders état in the sense developed by the following priest paragraph, without adding a political state or a particular religious order. The rhetorical question preserves the paradox that corruption consists in resemblance to the other conditions.

T116.Two physical paragraphs remain. The rhetorical question and the following Car clause retain the limiting ne...que and the repeated worldly-men formulation.

T18.Only a good man retains the restrictive ne...que. The second infinitive adds permitting oneself pleasures, and the worldly-men phrase is repeated with even virtuous. The force of crime remains; no specific pleasure is named.

T19.The nominal relative exclamation remains a fragment and keeps both exclamation marks. Have not known is not narrowed to deliberate rejection or ignorance of a particular doctrine.

T117.The nominal relative exclamation retains its doubled exclamation mark.

T20.The opening dash and dependent purpose clause remain. By it leaves en without a supplied antecedent. At once and forever preserve the temporal pair. Colored, perfumed, and imbued remain distinct, and the white wool is dyed three times. The historical source forms affin and imbuë remain in French.

T118.Affin retains double f. In the enlarged facsimile, imbuë shows two upper dots over its final e; the historical form is not silently regularized. The opening dash and dependent purpose clause remain. A separate solid mark in the left margin is not treated as a source character or a new separator.

T21.Hypocrites renders Cafards in its historical religious sense; the 1798 Académie gives hypocrite and bigot as personal senses. The damaged […]iscernement and […]onscience remain French, with discernement, discernment, and conscience, conscience, possible completions. The two nominal opening statements and the distinction between fear of evil and taste for good remain. Exquisite probity and greatness of soul retain the unusual final pair.

T22.Bigot renders cagot in its historical sense of false or misconceived devotion, not necessarily modern hostility toward a group. Its range overlaps cafard in the 1798 Académie. The person expressly possesses faith, law, and religion but lacks conscience. The residues […]ontraire, […]e, inté[…]ieure, and […]e remain French; contraire, Le, intérieure, and le are possible completions. From without preserves the contrast with an inward light. The source’s blanc becomes blank, with only the word italic inside roman brackets; the missing connection to his designs is not supplied, and the pronouns are not assigned a newly named antecedent.

T23.The conditional would not violate remains distinct from the following future will violate. The residues […]n, […]eu, […]iolera, […]ui, and […]ont remain French; un, peu, violera, lui, and sont are possible completions. His own remains unspecific. The shared unworthy, incapable follows both he and they. The abrupt shift to they are only his affections and the comma before that finite clause remain; no explanation of the pronoun shift is inserted. Altar retains its capital and the final ellipsis.

T24.The rule is God’s; outside him refers to the person just described. Its slave renders en être esclave, with the rule as its antecedent. So preserves the inference in aussi, without adding a new rule or agent.

T25.A Pascal preserves the source’s indefinite comparison. Style is not replaced by eloquence or an added account of either author. The printed leading digit of the date remains qualified.

T26.Understands renders entend, not hears. All the better keeps the comparative force of n’en aime que mieux. Relieve and exercise remain without a supplied object. The French […]ar is retained, with car, for, a possible completion; the capacity to compare remains explicit.

T27.Extracts alone retains the source emphasis. The completed reading of whole books is the condition for the comparison with translations; this stays the second paragraph of the same undated unit.

T28.The six so well phrases preserve the repeated textile treatment: cut, gathered, pleated, embroidered, used, displayed. Yes and the nominal construction remain. The source attributes the comparison to Mme de Sévigné without naming a letter; no independent collation of that attribution is claimed. Pensées retains its French form without adding source emphasis. The damaged day is not completed.

T123.Only final 1 is secure in the damaged day; the preceding fragmented glyph is not restored from the sequence. The nominal Oui formulation, unexpanded baseline Mme and repeated si bien remain. Pensées is capitalized but not given an added source italic. The first s of the line-opening si bien plissée is partly abraded and retained as qualified.

T29.The dependent When construction remains without a main clause. Sounds and harmonies distinguish sons from accords; voices joined together preserves réunies. English instruments covers both the printed instrumens and the qualified anomalous intrumens, whose differing forms remain in French.

T124.The two dependent clauses remain without a supplied main predicate. The opening occurrence is instrumens; the final word in the enlarged facsimile appears intrumens, without an s between n and t. The nonstandard final form is retained as a qualified literal reading.

T30.Times and history repeat without choosing a particular period. Others follows the plural sense of the printed d’autre, whose singular spelling remains in French. Have been so retains the earlier confusion of events; the events’ arising from one another and their known and natural causes remain distinct.

T125.Three physical paragraphs remain. D’autre is singular as printed. The second paragraph remains nominal and retains its chain of relatives, conditional feroient and historical landscape imagery. The concluding italic Latin in the enlarged facsimile supports animo deducta sereno, with final a in deducta. The excerpt and attribution remain without completing a larger quotation. Thin horizontal traces above ou and near the final serein resemble the surrounding reproduction artifacts; no extra accent or hyphen is certified from them.

T31.The nominal chain of Historians who remains without a main clause. Mood and character stay distinct. The conditional would make their characters fail to recognize retains the effect on the figures in the histories, not an asserted failure of the historian. Serene time, dark style, false sky, and real landscapes retain Joubert’s imagery.

T32.The Latin animo deducta sereno means drawn from a serene mind. The three words occur in Ovid, Tristia I.1.39, where they qualify poems; the next line contrasts the poet’s own clouded heart. Joubert applies the shortened extract to histories. The omitted noun and verb are not supplied, and the Latin alone retains the source italics. The bounded electronic Latin passage was read; no critical apparatus or particular source copy was collated.

T33.The opening remains a nominal formulation. Can discover renders puisse découvrir without adding certainty that every observer will do so. Truth and falsity remain alternatives, and tangled preserves embrouillé, distinct from complicated.

T126.The date’s er is raised. The opening nominal relative formulation is not supplied with a governing verb.