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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

1812

Time carries us along, and with us our good morals, our good customs, our good manners, our good opinions, etc. To avoid losing them and losing ourselves, we must cling again to some period whose morals, opinions, customs and manners we may aspire to revive in ourselves. Every people always had its own; we ought to settle upon one for ourselves.

September 12.

Not all minds have the faculty of ruminating that would be necessary to all in order to extract certain juices.

The Soul. More or less prompt and more or less ready, more or less practiced. The mind between the soul and the object. The soul comes from behind and when the mind has finished. This is an effect of habit. In Chateaubriand, the soul acts first. The soul and genius drowsing... Each person has something of both; but... (Fontainebleau.)

September 16.

“The Bitters,” says Voltaire. The soul needs bitters and astringents.

September 19.

Of the soul. And that: one speaks to one’s soul. And that: one imagines it separate from oneself and outside oneself. But who, then, is the person who speaks to it, and what will become of him without it?

September 23.

A philosophy friendly to antiquity, and not to novelty; which seeks utility more than brilliance and prefers being wise to being bold. Presumption always favors what has been; for, since it has been, it had its reason for being, and if it has endured, it had some reason for its duration, which could only have been its accord with what already existed, or a need of the time or a need of nature; in short, some necessity that will bring it back if one destroys it and that will make its absence felt through some grave inconvenience.

September 24.

Pl-ch- is wrong. Not everyone is obliged to practice the arts. But everyone is obliged to practice the virtues. Practicing the virtues is work.

And one is excused from being an instrument in society when one is a model in it.

September 12.

... who makes us believe what he cannot make us see when it is important that we have some knowledge of it.

September 24.

Philosophers. — who ask only pleasures of the rich man and ask no virtues of him. Religion, on the contrary: “you shall meet the expenses of being a good man and a brother to other men.”

T241.The repeated good, the two losses and the changed order of the second list remain. Cling again renders raccrocher’s renewed attachment; the final one refers contextually to a period, without a century or historical exemplar supplied.

T547.The two printed nous même forms retain singular même and no hyphen. The orders of the two lists differ and remain as printed. Eut and faudroit retain their distinct tenses. Minor left-edge abrasion affects contours in usages/les/à/en/Chaque but does not remove their identifiable letters.

T242.The partial negative and conditional necessity retain their different scopes. Rumination and juices preserve the bodily image. Extract certain juices reads de certains sucs partitively; from certain juices with an unexpressed extracted object remains a grammatical alternative, without being selected for the main translation.

T243.The nominal fragments, repeated more or less, behind/when relation and contrasting first action remain. The soul and genius are not collapsed into the mind. Both unfinished endings and the parenthetic place cue remain; no event or independently assigned date is supplied.

T549.The initial Ame has a plain capital A, unlike the subsequent lower-case âme forms. The punctuation after Ame is read as a period with nearby horizontal reproduction artifacts; its fine contour remains qualified. In the second plus ou moins, short stepped/horizontal marks appear over both o and u, alongside similar artifacts over nearby words; they do not certify a typographic accent, so plain ou is retained with qualification. Chateaubriand is plain and remains unexpanded. Minor left-edge abrasion in derrière/Chateaubriand/Chaque leaves enough structure for the qualified readings. The nominal formulations, both ellipses and final location remain within one paragraph; (Fontainebleau.) is not a new date or heading.

T244.The quoted phrase, capital Bitters and repeated bitters retain the medicinal image beside astringents. The attribution is reported without an identified Voltaire work. No period dictionary entry is claimed as directly read for these terms.

T550.September 16 and the initial capital Amers remain. The quotation is limited to Les Amers; the attribution is not expanded. Astringens retains its printed spelling.

T245.The nominal opening and repeated dependent And that remain. The separation and outside images are not replaced by a psychological explanation. The final speaker and soul remain distinct, with no identification of the speaker. Generic him resumes the grammatically masculine personnage without identifying a male person.

T246.The initial dependent formulation, two preferences, repeated need and causal sequence remain. Presumption denotes the initial favorable assumption, not personal arrogance. The claim about returning necessity remains Joubert’s conditional argument; no modern political thesis or example is inserted. Accord with renders the suitability relation of convenance avec. The later it refers to what has been, not automatically to the opening feminine philosophy.

T552.September 23, the nominal opening and relative clause remain. The source changes grammatical gender from philosophie to the later il/le formulations; no referent is inserted. The right-edge endings in sage, a, subsisté and détruit retain enough contours for qualified readings despite abrasion.

T247.The opaque abbreviated name remains unexpanded. The first negative is partial, contrasted with the universal duty in the next sentence. Practice and virtues repeat, without making every person a professional artist.

T248.The initial And, dispensation and instrument/model distinction remain in their own paragraph, without assigning a particular social role.

T249.The opening ellipsis and relative fragment remain. The unnamed agent, inability to show and limited some knowledge are not expanded; the source’s nonchronological date remains in place.

T554.September 12 remains after September 24 without calendar repair. The opening ellipsis and relative fragment remain; the right-edge ending of quand is qualified for abrasion.

T250.The opening label and relative fragment, paired requests and future injunction remain. Of being takes the expenses as those the addressee incurs in the role of a good man and brother, preserving the concrete expense image. This is a contextual interpretation, not a verified fixed-idiom claim or an invented beneficiary. No philosopher is identified.

T555.September 24, the dash and relative fragment remain. Both restrictions/negations are retained. The right-edge e of the first ne is abraded but its open contour remains identifiable; no lost word is supplied. The quote begins with lower-case tu and contains its final period.