Diotimos Reading Desk

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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

YEAR 1810

April 20.

—who would have the talent to make beautiful works, but does not have the strength. Unrecognized by those who can judge merit only by success.

Those readings in which one is carried away by a curiosity that nothing satisfies.

April […].

Any child who has not experienced great fears will not have […] great virtues. The great powers of their soul will not have […]é stirred. Cold tempers iron and fear tempers souls.

It is the great fears of shame that make […]ublique education preferable to education at home, because the multitude of […]moins alone makes blame terrible and public censure is […]armi censures the only one that freezes beautiful souls with dread.

May […].

Bacon carried his imagination into physics, as Plato had […]orté his into metaphysics; as bold and as venturesome […] establish conjectures by invoking experience as Plato was […]agnifique in displaying verisimilitudes. Plato at least gives his […]ées as ideas; but Bacon gives his, or at least […]it receive them, as facts. Thus he deceives in physics more than […]autre in metaphysics; see his history of life and death. […]ous two, for the rest, were great and beautiful minds; both have […]it a long way through literary spaces, Bacon with a […]ger and closed foot, Plato with great wings.

All representations, I mean all appearances, well made […]laisent the mind as they please the eyes. See Bacon. He […]magine a play of organs and a life that is neither ours nor that […]’aucun animal, but it amuses.

May […]9.

“... An unfortunate turn of mind (as the four Dutch […]rofesseurs very well say) that leads otherwise enlightened men to […]tre more struck by difficulties than by demonstrations and by objec[…]ons than by proofs... The principal source of modern Pyrrhonism […]joutent-ils) and of the number of false systems...” (because one is not […]amais content enough with truth.) — (Memorial to H. M. the King of Hol[…]ande, etc.)

May […]6.

“We are (says the Imitation) what we are before God.” We are what God sees us to be and all things are what God sees them to be.

“The mind hears with ears” and it sees with eyes and it […]ouche with hands. One must therefore give harmony, pleasant cou[…]eurs, and polish to the things one wishes to make it love.

May […]7.

A fructibus eorum cognoscetis eos. If one judged priests by […]ette rule!... They form sublime souls and souls more sublime than the […]eurs themselves, the souls of slaves. See Véronique and her mother and her sisters.

May […]9.

In—cc—l—t—V—cc—n—t—n. [Inoculation, Vaccination.]

God seems to use them to keep human industry alert and sharpen it. Multa... renascentur. As in those games where, when un[…] difficulty is resolved, another is proposed. There are fatal destructio[…]. Our wisdom seeks the remedy for them and this is one of our devoir[…] When the remedy is found, other diseases arise; heaven fa[…] what it wishes and what is necessary.

T60.The opening dash and unnamed relative subject remain. Would have contrasts with does not have; talent is not equated with strength. Unrecognized keeps the participial fragment, and only by success preserves the restriction on the judgment of merit.

T61.Readings remains a nominal opening. Carried away retains the force of entraîné, and nothing satisfies keeps the absolute negation without identifying particular books or pleasures.

T150.The nominal relative formulation remains without a supplied main clause.

T62.The future formulations and repeated great remain. Tempers preserves the comparison of cold working on iron and fear working on souls. The missing material before grandes and the surviving ending […]é remain unfilled; de and été are contextual possibilities, not certified text. Their is generic and does not name the child.

T63.The two paragraphs remain paired separately. Public and domestic education concern education among others and at home, not a supplied modern school system. The damaged French residues remain literal; publique, témoins, and parmi are contextual possibilities only. The restrictive alone and only, and the freezing image, remain.

T64.Physics retains physique and experience retains expérience without narrowing it to a particular experiment. The intact verbs and contrasts remain, while broken words retain their French residues: possible completions include porté, magnifique, idées, fait, l’autre, Tous, fait, and léger. No missing preposition is supplied. Closed follows the qualified printed fermé; firm would require reading ferme and is not silently substituted. The history of life and death remains a lower-case description rather than an independently certified edition title.

T152.The May day is lost. The numerous left-edge losses remain explicit: orté, agnifique, ées, it, autre, ous, the later it, and ger do not certify their missing initials. The isolated missing word before établir is not supplied. Some opening strokes in retained residues are abraded. Hazardeux retains z. The final e of fermé has a small raised acute-like trace in the enlarged facsimile; fermé is a qualified literal reading, without silently substituting ferme from the context. The lower-case roman histoire de la vie et de la mort remains in the sentence without a supplied formal title.

T65.Representations keeps the broad visual sense of peintures, which Joubert immediately glosses as appearances. The broken predicates and genitive remain in French; plaisent, imagine, and d’aucun are contextual possibilities only. Play retains the working or movement of organs without identifying a particular biological mechanism. The final it amuses stays unqualified.

T66.The four professors and the Memorial are not independently identified. The quotation boundaries, ellipses, and following lower-case explanation remain; the unmatched surviving parenthesis is not silently repaired. Pyrrhonism and systems render pirrhonisme and systhèmes without changing their French spelling. Broken words remain in French; professeurs, être, objections, ajoutent-ils, jamais, and Hollande are contextual completions only. H. M. renders S. M.; the incomplete document reference is not expanded. Not translates the surviving n’ before est; the broken […]amais remains uncompleted.

T67.The quotation ends with before God; the following sentence is Joubert’s separate formulation. A close Latin parallel occurs in The Imitation of Christ, III.50.8: a person is as much as they are in God’s eyes, and no more. That passage attributes the saying to Saint Francis. Joubert’s shorter plural formulation and the repeated what God sees remain; neither the omitted qualification nor the attribution is inserted into his text. The parallel identifies a passage, not Joubert’s particular copy.

T68.Only the first phrase is quoted. The repeated sensory organs, harmony, and polish remain physical images. The clipped words stay as French residues; touche and couleurs are contextual possibilities only. It refers to the mind in the final clause.

T69.The Latin remains in both languages, with the fresh gloss “By their fruits you will know them.” It matches the opening of Matthew 7:16 in the Vulgate; the nearby warning about false prophets supplies its biblical context, not a new identity for Joubert’s priests. The French conditional remains unfinished. Cette and leurs are contextual completions only; Véronique and her family remain unidentified. The explicit souls of slaves is not softened or reassigned.

T70.The abbreviated letter groups and the source’s bracketed expansions remain exactly as printed, in a separate paragraph. No letters are restored inside the shorthand and no additional procedure or person is named.

T158.The day retains only the secure suffix 9. The first paragraph’s letter groups in the enlarged facsimile read cc in both abbreviations; the printed square-bracketed expansions are retained. No consonants are supplied from those expansions. The second physical paragraph continues onto page 692. Éguiser is retained as a qualified literal reading; the raised mark over its first e is acute-like. Multa... renascentur. alone is italic. At the right edge of page 692, the word endings after un, destructio, devoir and fa are lost; the ending after devoir may also include punctuation. Une, destructions, devoirs and fait are contextual possibilities only. The fragment beginning Comme remains without an invented governing clause.

T71.The paragraph continues onto page 692. Human industry means human resourcefulness and effort; sharpen interprets the qualified spelling éguiser contextually without changing the French. The Latin is retained, with the fresh gloss “Many things... will be born again.” The opening words occur in Horace’s Art of Poetry, line 70; lines 70–72 concern words falling out of and returning to use. Joubert’s ellipsis stays in its printed position, and the following As fragment is not made a complete sentence. The clipped endings stay in French: une, destructions, devoirs, and fait are contextual possibilities only; no missing punctuation after devoir is supplied. The passage’s historical reflection on disease and providence is retained.