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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

YEAR 1811

March 26.

Marseille. Chateaubriand said: “This city is far above its reputation... This is more beautiful than Paris: except for the palaces. So this is the sea where Neptune was born! Between the Mediterranean and the Ocean there is the difference one might observe between mythology and Christianity... Besides, when one sees olive trees, one is not surprised that Homer and Virgil so often compare young men to this tree. It has I know not what of adolescence... The marble baths...” And: “The abundance of their waters. Asiatic sensual delights...”

April 6.

Instead of a “slave people,” say “an oppressed people”: the first epithet is a word of reproach, the second a claim to commendation.

April 8.

Power is a beauty.

To serve as someone’s muse.

Faults that have no name, and that have not been classified, determined, etc. or that are difficult to perceive. Voltaire is full of them.

April 23 and 24.

At Draguignan. Mr. d’Eymar.

Nota. “Old man, you are very old, but you are less old than your son who is going to die.” (To Mr. d’Albert the father, by a man from Toulon.)

May 1.

(At Hyères.) Nice is a city without breasts.

May […].

(At Hyères.) The art of raising children is a necessary art, and one that […] always been known.

Coolness during summer.

May […].

At Marseille.

May 12.

They form a feeling about everything; and these others form only an opinion about it.

May 13.

Everything is born of some dream; even the world, which is born of an idea of God. It is from the dreams of good men that good actions and beautiful institutions come.

S1.Source editor’s annotationSeparate sheet, dated only “March 26.” I assign it to 1811 because that is the year Joubert went to Marseille; but I do not say that he was in Marseille precisely on March 26. The notebook gives absolutely nothing from March 21 to April 6. As for the quotation from Chateaubriand, I do not know whether it was written or spoken.

T48.The two quoted stretches and intervening And remain within one paragraph. The mythological and literary comparisons remain as attributed statements, without assigning a newly verified ancient locus. The tree is the antecedent of the adolescent quality. Beaunier’s separate note qualifies both the year placement and whether this quotation was written or spoken; no exact visit date or work is inferred. The elusive first-person phrase and all printed ellipses remain; sensual delights retains the plural voluptés. The name follows the qualified plain spelling Chateaubriand.

T56.I is Beaunier in this source apparatus. The assignment to 1811 remains his inference, not a year printed on the separate sheet. His denial of an exact March 26 visit inference and his uncertainty about written or spoken quotation remain explicit. The notebook interval is a report of absence of entries, not a transcription gap newly introduced here.

T191.One physical paragraph retains both quoted stretches, all ellipses and the intervening Et. Thin displaced marks above both a letters in the main name Chateaubriand resemble the surrounding reproduction artifacts and do not certify a circumflex; the plain spelling is retained with that qualification. Some right-edge strokes are abraded but support the complete words, including the e in de. Au dessus is unhyphenated; Océan and Christianisme retain their capitals, and the printed Il a and scais are not regularized. Source call 1 follows mars in the date before its period. The separate-sheet annotation explicitly qualifies the year and the precise March 26 location, and leaves the quotation’s written or spoken origin unresolved.

T192.One roman apparatus paragraph dates the separate sheet only by an explicit editorial inference to 1811, declines to locate Joubert in Marseille precisely on March 26, and leaves the quotation’s written or spoken source unresolved. Chateaubriand is plain in this apparatus occurrence.

S2.Source editor’s annotationNotebook.

T49.The two quoted descriptions and their opposed social force remain. Slave preserves the source’s direct label rather than silently replacing it with a different moral judgment. Claim to commendation renders titre de recommandation as a favorable claim; the distinction is Joubert’s, without a newly named population. The first article stays outside its quotation, while the second remains inside.

T57.This is Beaunier’s separate source designation attached to the April 6 date, not an added sentence by Joubert.

T193.The first indefinite article remains outside its quotation and the second inside. The second clause shares its predicate without repetition. Source call 2 follows avril in the date before its period.

T50.The indefinite a beauty remains, with no new example or expansion.

T51.The infinitive remains a fragment. Neither the person serving nor the recipient is identified.

T195.The infinitive remains without a supplied subject or finite governing clause.

T52.The initial relative formulation remains nominal; the repeated that and the alternative or remain. Determined retains the fixing or delimiting range of déterminés without inventing a taxonomy. Them refers to those faults, not a newly supplied list.

T196.The nominal opening and repeated relative alternatives remain. Appercevoir retains its doubled p. Thin displaced marks around several letters are reproduction artifacts, not added accents.

T53.The two short nominal formulations remain together in their one physical paragraph. Mr. renders the source honorific; no forename or identity is supplied.

T197.Two physical paragraphs remain under the combined April 23 and 24 date. The first is a pair of place/name fragments, not a date label alone. Nota. alone is italic. The r of both Mʳ forms is raised. The second paragraph retains the familiar singular address, comparative reversal and the separate addressee/speaker parenthesis. Toulonnois retains its double n.

T54.Nota. remains the separate italic Latin cue. Both old comparisons and the approaching death remain; the parenthesis distinguishes addressee, father and speaker without inventing their identities or an explanation of the paradox.

T55.The place and named city remain distinct. Breasts preserves mamelles as a bodily image; no resource, harbor or sustenance is substituted as its meaning.

T198.The date’s er is raised. The place parenthesis and bodily metaphor remain. The punctuation after Hyères has a baseline dot with a separate thin horizontal artifact above; it is retained as a qualified period, not converted into a colon.

T58.The repeated art and necessary remain. The lost word before always is not supplied: French a is contextually possible, but not recovered from the facsimile. The corresponding loss remains in the English clause. The damaged day is likewise not completed.

T199.The damaged date preserves only disconnected right-edge fragments; not even a final 2 is securely established, so no day digit is supplied. Before toujours only a narrow right-side remnant survives; a is a contextual possibility, not a complete printed recovery. The place parenthesis remains in the body.

T59.The sensory noun remains a short nominal fragment, without an added wish or place.

T200.The nominal fragment remains without a supplied predicate.

T60.This complete place paragraph remains separate from its printed date; no event or person is supplied.

T61.They renders the feminine elles, while these others retains the contrasting masculine demonstrative ceux ci. No identities are supplied for either group. Only limits the opinion, and the repeated formation preserves the shared construction.

T62.The repeated birth image and even remain. Good men, good actions and beautiful institutions retain the different evaluations; no particular foundation or political project is supplied.