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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

YEAR 1810

July 21.

Politeness acts not only on manners, but on the mind and on the heart. It makes all feelings, all opinions, all words moderate and gentle.

Yes, these brave men keep them from drowning; but your priests will keep them from throwing themselves into the water.

Yes, it seems that peoples love perils and that, when they lack them, they make some for themselves.

July 31.

Generous acts of vengeance. Always, always; they must all be so always.

One must be a martyr to a faith one does not possess, when one would wish to possess it. For then one judges it to be the best thing there is.

August 5.

“There are” (says Pope laughing, and yet Pope is right) “secret truths, unknown to proud philosophers and revealed only to virgins and children... It is given only to innocence to believe them.” A beautiful saying.

September […]8.

Religion. And those souls whose natural virtues (virtue that even it has perfected) do not allow them to feel its necessity.

Friday, November 9.

(At Cahors.) The sea and the rocks.

For the rocks are the excuse and ornament of barrenness.

(Nimes.) Thus they have painted Love smaller than the Soul.

The circus to the people. — The small edifice, to the children of Agrippa, princes of youth. — To Caesar who gave gates and walls to the city of Nimes.

November 13.

(At Avignon.) Not to do with the hands what can be done with the feet.

November 16.

(At Avignon.) With the pleasure of suspension may be compared that of expectation deceived, but pleasantly deceived. This kind of play is ordinarily produced by broken symmetries or interrupted slopes, as one can observe in certain rustic airs and in Fénelon’s style. This practice gives song an artless appearance and style sweetness.

God. This sun that lights us and that sees us.

That: one must sacrifice one’s mood to one’s role, and even one’s virtues to one’s duty.

T86.The influence on manners, mind, and heart remains distinct. The repeated all keeps the reach of the three final objects, while moderate and gentle modify all three.

T87.These brave men and them remain unnamed. Present keep and future will keep remain distinct, as do drowning and the act of throwing oneself into the water. The second-person your is retained.

T88.Peoples retains the plural of communities. It seems keeps the assertion qualified; the recurrence of perils as what they lack and make for themselves remains.

T89.The opening remains nominal, and all three occurrences of always are retained. Generous keeps the moral breadth of généreuses rather than measuring the severity of vengeance; so refers back to generous.

T176.The nominal opening and all three occurrences of toujours remain. No antecedent is inserted beside toutes or le.

T90.The paradox of martyrdom to a faith not possessed remains, as do present lack and conditional desire. The second sentence gives the judgment that follows from that desire; it does not assert that belief has already been attained.

T91.A close parallel occurs in Pope’s The Rape of the Lock, I.37–40. Joubert condenses and recasts those lines in French prose; the English here newly translates his French, including proud philosophers, virgins, and the restrictive innocence clause. The interrupted quotation, ellipsis, and Joubert’s two judgments remain. No particular French intermediary or copy is identified. The printed spelling ceppendant is retained in the French.

T178.The two separate quoted stretches and intervening parenthesis remain in one paragraph. The printed spelling ceppendant has two visible p descenders and is retained without normalization. Belle parole remains a nominal judgment outside the quotation. No external Pope work is identified in the source.

T92.The demonstrative relative construction remains unfinished. The pronouns it and its refer back to religion; the printed singular vertu and plural perfected ending are preserved in the French rather than silently regularized. English virtue retains the singular noun. The parenthesis keeps even and the possibility that religion itself has perfected those qualities.

T179.Only the terminal day digit 8 is secure; the leading traces do not establish a complete day. The singular vertu inside the parenthesis and feminine plural perfectionnées remain as printed. The nominal opening and following Et construction are not supplied with a new main predicate.

T93.The printed place name remains without a geographical correction or an inferred itinerary. The following nouns form an unexpanded fragment.

T180.Four physical paragraphs remain under Vendredi 9 novembre. Cahors is the visible place name, retained without a geographical correction. The place parentheses stay within their respective paragraphs. Both Nimes forms have a dot-like raised mark over i, with thin adjacent horizontal artifacts; no circumflex is certified, so the qualified plain-i readings remain. Amour and Âme retain their capitals; the facsimile shows m as the middle letter of Âme. The final paragraph’s three detached formulations and dashes remain. Cæsar retains the æ form, and princes is plural; no monument or dedicatee is supplied.

T94.Excuse and ornament remain paired, with barrenness retaining stérilité broadly. No unprinted landscape is supplied.

T95.The place and the unexplained they remain. Love and Soul keep the paired personifications and capitals of Amour and Âme without identifying a painting or statue. Nimes follows the qualified source spelling without a circumflex.

T96.The three fragments retain their different directions and punctuation. No verbs are supplied for the first two or a governing clause for To Caesar. The children, Agrippa, and Caesar remain as named, without assigning an independently unverified monument or expanding an inscription. Caesar renders the printed Cæsar; Nimes follows the source spelling.

T97.The opening infinitive remains an impersonal formulation, and hands and feet remain a literal contrast without an explanation of the activity.

T98.Suspension retains Joubert’s term rather than assigning a particular musical chord or rhetorical figure. The repeated deception remains pleasant. Broken symmetries and interrupted slopes keep their spatial images across rustic airs and prose. Artless renders naïve as an appearance of unstudied simplicity; sweetness retains douceur.

T99.God remains a separate nominal sentence. The following demonstrative fragment gives the sun both illumination and sight; no explanatory predicate is added.

T183.Both nominal formulations remain without a supplied main clause; the two relative clauses are repeated.

T100.The initial That and colon remain without an invented governing statement. Mood renders humeur in its range of feeling or disposition; role and duty remain different, and even gives the second sacrifice its force.

T184.The opening Que followed by a colon and lower-case il remains without an invented governing clause. Même retains its singular form; no personal identity is supplied.