Diotimos Reading Desk

Tap the page, move to the top or bottom edge, swipe down, or press Tab to reveal reading controls. Use the arrow keys or swipe sideways to turn pages.

← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

1812

Fontenelle, of whom it was so well said that “he put too much reason into his works” to need “to put reasonings into them.”

One can parody this expression and say: “There is grace (and a sort of urbanity) in beginning with men through esteem and trust.” This indeed proves at least that one has long lived in good company with others and with oneself.

Tuesday, March 31.

From these abominable experiences comes a knowledge that blinds. — Those shameful studies; unbridled curiosity; honors that corrupt morals.

Wednesday, April 1.

Two kinds of genius. One that penetrates at a glance what pertains to human life, and the other what pertains to divine things, to souls.

One scarcely has the first fully and perfectly without also having some parts of the second; but one can have the second without the other. This is because human things depend on [divine] things and touch them on every side, but the relation is not reciprocal here. Heaven could subsist without earth, but earth could not without heaven.

Or rather, pride is the height of ignorance.

April 8.

An amusing brevity, short and comic words. But the danger to be feared is that this brevity may be burlesque, these words baroque.

Finally, taste in literature has become so domestic, and approval so dependent on pleasure, that in a book one first seeks the author, and in the author their passions or their humors. If these resemble ours, we love the author; otherwise we reject them. The true, the pure beautiful, what is true and what is beautiful in itself, does not interest us on its own. It is no longer peace of heart and mind that we seek in books, but the disturbance of emotions. Thus there must be a mixture in them to please us. We want the soul of writers to show itself there with the strength and weaknesses, the knowledge and errors, the wisdom and illusions that can make men fit for our use and that we like to find in the connections we form; finally, the mixture of good and evil that charm us in dramatic characters, the imperfections (as someone has very well said), the imperfections and qualities that attach us to them “through an association of contrary and discordant elements that temper one another and keep us (deliciously) suspended between blame and approval.” That is what we like to see in the writer’s soul and mind. It is no longer a sage that we seek in an author and wish to find there, but a lover or a friend. Or at least an actor who represents themself, and whose role and acting charm our tastes much more than our reasons. We want books to make us, not better but more contented, those who made them to arouse in us a sort of sensuous taste: to have flesh and blood along with mind and soul. We hate, or at least we could no longer admire, pure spirits. Yet, if some celestial intelligence... Daylight alone no longer suffices for us, but we would like a fine day. Light is the good of the eyes and, as we are sentient, it might be...

April 19.

Wisdom is the beginning of the beautiful.

Cadence. The number of syllables necessarily contributes to it in every language. Cadence forms clausules of periods that vary while leaving the rhythm the same. (By rhythm I mean what is produced by the mixture of longs and shorts in languages that have these measures.

April 20.

Some ignorance is necessary in order to have some modesty.

Spaced. Well or badly spaced. Being well or badly spaced is [important] in architecture for columns, and in all the arts for [all] the dominant ornaments.

T66.The relative fragment and two separately quoted stretches remain, with reason distinguished from plural reasonings. A bounded search did not identify a primary witness for the reported remark; no speaker or expanded attribution is supplied.

T412.The apostrophe before the first opening quotation, both separately quoted spans and the nominal relative formulation remain. The first s in the left-edge ses is slightly abraded but identifiable. Raisonnemens retains its spelling.

T67.Parody remains the source’s term for recasting the expression. The parenthesis, at least and conjunction of others and self remain. No new external source or social rule is supplied.

T68.The opposed knowledge/blindness image and later fragments remain. Experiences leaves open the range of expériences, including experiments or trials; no particular act is identified. Honors renders the qualified printed honneurs without supplying a motive or changing it from the adverse context. The semicolon series is not turned into a causal narrative.

T414.Honneurs visibly has the two n arches; the literal reading is retained rather than substituting horreurs from the surrounding adverse context. The dash, nominal sequence and differing corrupting/blinding images remain. The printed Tuesday March 31 date is retained.

T69.The nominal opening and two dependent relative formulations remain. Penetrates and glance keep distinct physical images, with divine things and souls both retained.

T415.The first formulation remains nominal and elliptical. The second paragraph begins on 712 without an intervening separator and remains in the April 1 unit. The date includes the printed Wednesday and raised er, whose small glyphs are compressed. The source supplies the brackets around divines. The final y beside the 712 right margin retains its upper joined strokes but loses part of its lower descender; y is a qualified reading, not an unequivocally complete glyph. The other right-edge endings remain identifiable. The repeated first/second contrast, negative restrictions, stated failure of reciprocity and conditional pourroit remain. Guères retains its printed spelling.

T70.The qualified first claim, possibility of the second and nonreciprocal relation remain. The source editor’s [divines] is mirrored as [divine]. Parts, touching and the heaven/earth comparison remain, with no new theological explanation. This second paragraph begins physically on page 712 and retains the April 1 unit.

T71.The corrective opening and superlative height image remain, without an added preceding argument.

T72.The nominal opening and risk remain. Amusing, comic, burlesque and baroque keep their separate evaluations; no particular writer is named. Baroque renders the intact printed barroques; the French double r remains.

T416.Barroques retains the printed double r. The right-edge endings of danger and barroques are abraded but identifiable; the nominal opening and abbreviated final predication remain.

T73.Domestic retains domestique as an image for the reader’s familiar or personal sphere; it alone is italic. This long passage remains one paragraph. Repeated imperfections, the paired contrary qualities, changing we/one constructions, and distinct soul/mind and tastes/reasons remain. The quoted association has an unidentified speaker; the parenthetic attribution and deliciously remain in their source positions. The plural charm follows French charment, which can relate to good and evil within the phrase headed by singular mixture. Singular their and themself leave the generic author or actor unspecified. The second wishes sentence retains one governing We want, its comma and the qualified colon after taste; English infinitival clauses carry the successive French que clauses without additional repeated subjects. Sensuous and sentient distinguish the local functions of sensible. The conditional could no longer and would like retain the modal shifts, followed by two unfinished celestial/light clauses. No conclusion is supplied.

T417.This is one printed paragraph, including the repeated imperfections, quoted contrary elements and closing unfinished conditionals. The attribution to quelqu’un remains unidentified. Domestique alone is italic. The mark after goût sensible has two stacked blocks and no certifiable descending comma tail; a colon is the qualified reading. The right-margin degradation does not prevent identifying the retained word endings. Scaurions and Ceppendant are literal printed spellings; the latter has two p descenders. Contens, élémens, discordans and scavoir are retained. The source has plural charment after mélange du bien et du mal, and a comma before the renewed que ceux; no agreement correction or conjunction is supplied. The repeated negative restrictions and final ellipses remain.

T74.Beginning remains the temporal or formative noun, without adding a definition of beauty.

T75.The nominal opening, necessary contribution and local distinction remain. English repeats Cadence for French Elle to make its reference clear after the intervening sentence about the masculine nombre. Clausules renders clausules as rhetorical endings; periods retains sentence-form rather than historical time. Longs and shorts retain the source’s ellipsis for syllabic quantities. The source opens but does not close its parenthesis; English retains that unfinished punctuation rather than supplying a closing mark.

T76.Both some qualifiers remain, with the relation expressed as necessity rather than a new celebration of ignorance.

T77.The initial fragments and repeated alternatives remain. Columns and dominant ornaments retain their specific roles. [Important] and the final [all] render contextual important and tous from impor[…]ant and […]us; the first tous in all the arts is intact. Missing French letters remain unrecovered.

T419.The wrapped ending of important loses the t; the following a is partly clipped but identifiable. At the following left edge, only us is secure, with a damaged rounded remnant before it; tous is a contextual completion only. The nominal formulations and repeated espacé remain.