Diotimos Reading Desk

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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

YEAR 1813

February […].

Of wit at rest and of wit through movement. Between [these] two ways of having wit there is a notable difference: [almost] all the difference between a star and a pebble. [The] star shines of itself and always shines; the pebble shines by accident [and] through an outside cause that makes the little [light] it contains spring from its veins, light that is in it, but not of it, and [that] it shares with the most opaque bodies. Someone who shows wit in the calm of his reason and in the repose of his humors [and] his blood is a man of wit from his own resources. Someone who needs collision, friction, agitation to [show] his is a [man] of wit by chance. Finally, the man of wit who is a man [of] wit only through movement is a beast by nature. He is the [pebble] from which sparks are struck, but which is no luminous body.

Philosopho-logy and Of philosophologists. This closely resembles the politicologists and the politicology that I had once remarked on. [Now] there is a great difference between a statesman and a politicologist. [Between] a poet, or a maker of poems, and a maker of poetics, [between] a rhetorician and an orator.

There is a great difference between credulity and faith. The one is [a] defect of the mind, the other a quality of it, a virtue. The [first] comes from our extreme weakness, the second has as its principle a [gentle] and praiseworthy teachableness, quite compatible with strength and [even] very favorable to it.

Everything loves God, except the corrupted man.

February […]4.

Mr. Geoffroy says wittily and nobly of those dizzy times: “Everything was true, except truth itself.” People believed in the miracles [of] physics and not in those of religion. They had foolishly and [proudly] displaced the marvelous.

February […].

“Sleep, my child; and you, waves, sleep; sleep, sorrows without measure.” A passage of Simonides cited by Dionysius of Halicarnassus in De compositione, recalled by Mr. Ω in today’s paper.

February […]7.

Give place to anger. Let anger pass, make room for it; do not obstruct its march; do not hinder its course, give it time to die out, open a free path for it.

“She falls and, falling, arranged her garments.” That is how one should grow old. Or rather, that is how one should fall into old age, into languor, into decrepitude itself and into death.

February 8.

Favors are to be extended. Gratitude must be broad, and in the services rendered to us the deed must be taken as the intention. Favors are to be extended is one of those maxims, whose truth is cubic, that is to say square, or which are beautiful and true from whatever face one considers them. — Cubic truths: I believe that morality alone has such truths. Morality and laws. — Odious things are to be restricted.

It is a cubic truth: that is to say, a maxim true whichever way one turns it, on whatever face one presents it, from whatever point of view one considers it.

T16.Wit repeats for the sustained esprit comparison. The star/pebble, in/of light, veins, collision/friction and final sparks remain. Humors is historical bodily vocabulary, not reduced to moods. Almost and only retain their limitations. [These], [almost], [light], [that], [show], [man], [of] and [pebble] render contextual ces, presque, lumière, qui, montrer, homme, d’ and caillou from the corresponding damaged residues. [The] before star and both [and] words interpret suspected losses before astre, par and de son sang; the source reviewer cannot independently establish those omissions’ presence or extent. These are disclosed contextual readings, not recovered French. The missing partitive before l’esprit has no separate idiomatic counterpart in English shows wit; no empty English bracket is supplied. The February day remains wholly lost.

T423.The date’s day is wholly lost. The long paragraph remains one paragraph. Left-edge losses leave only s before deux, e after wrapped pres-, mière, i before lui, er after mon-, omme, the apostrophe before esprit and an unreadable ending after cail-. The fragment before l’esprit is broken into disconnected marks and does not establish de. The source hazard remains. The gaps before astre, par and de son sang mark suspected left-margin omissions: their presence or extent is not independently established by a complete surviving letter, and no L’, et or other connector is supplied. The repeated light terms, pronoun sequence, restrictions and final point negative remain.

T17.The hyphenated coinage and capital Of remain. Statesman interprets politique as the practical political actor here; no modern discipline or named figure is supplied. Had once remarked on retains the explicit pluperfect. Maker repeats, and the closing contrasts stay fragments. [Now] and both [between] words interpret Or and Entre from […]r and the two […]ntre residues. The damaged aux before politicologues has no separate English preposition after resembles; the remains ordinary English article use, with no separate bracket for a recovered French word. No missing French letters are restored.

T424.The lower-case/upper-case La and Des formulation and the internal hyphen in philosopho-logie remain. Native inspection shows materially incomplete openings before ux, r and both ntre groups; aux, Or and Entre are contextual possibilities only. Poëte and poëtiques retain their printed diaereses. No grammatical link or new sentence is inserted into the final comparison.

T18.The parallel one/other and first/second formulations, mind/virtue and weakness/strength contrast remain. Teachableness interprets docilité through the stated receptive virtue without equating it with weakness or mere submission. [A], [first], [gentle] and [even] render contextual un, première, douce and même from […]n, pre[…]ière, […]ouce and […]ême. The French faiblese retains its single s; English weakness does not reproduce that spelling anomaly.

T19.The universal statement and one exception remain. Corrupted is moral perversion in context without importing a specifically sexual meaning or identifying a person.

T20.The reported quotation and its contradiction remain. Physics, religious miracles and the marvelous stay distinct; no particular era, article or experiment is independently identified. The imperfect belief and past-perfect displacement remain. [Of] and [proudly] render contextual de and fièrement from […]e and fiè[…]ement; the surviving accent is qualified. The February day retains only its terminal 4 without reconstruction.

T427.The day’s surviving stem and crossing support a qualified terminal 4; no preceding digit is certified. The quotation’s damaged opening mark retains enough of its right-facing body for a qualified guillemet. Before e la physique the preceding d is not certifiable, and the wrapped fiè- continues with a materially damaged opening before ement. De and fièrement are contextual completions only; the upper mark on the surviving è is compressed and remains qualified. The raised r, the period within the quotation, and the opposed physics/religion objects remain without an expanded identity or contemporary explanatory claim.

T21.Sleep repeats three times, with plural waves and sorrows and the nominal source statement. The parallel occurs in Dionysius of Halicarnassus, De compositione verborum 26, in his quotation of Simonides’ Danaë lament; its Greek singular sea and suffering do not replace Joubert’s French plurals. De compositione alone remains italic. Ω preserves the qualified collated glyph after M.; no personal name or newspaper is identified. Today remains a relative circumstance, and the February day is wholly lost.

T428.The day’s disconnected remnants do not securely establish the map’s provisional suffix 6; the whole day remains lost. The character after M. has a rounded upper body and two separate baseline feet with an open lower center, supporting a qualified capital Ω reading; no Q tail, secure G bar, expanded name or author identity is certified. Native and independent peer inspection support this glyph approximation. De compositione alone is italic, with its ordinary page wrap joined; the initial c has minor edge abrasion but a recognizable open contour. The initial s of sans is likewise qualified for abrasion. Rappellé retains its printed double l. The two semicolons, repeated dormez, quoted boundary and relative circumstance ce jour remain.

T22.The opening Latin is freshly translated, followed by Joubert’s repeated spatial and movement images. The imperatives, two negatives and extinguishing remain. The matching Latin phrase occurs in Romans 12:19, where the surrounding words concern retaliation and the Lord’s recompense. Joubert develops his own account of making room for anger to pass; divine is not added to the opening. Its English translation alone remains italic, including the period. The February day retains only terminal 7.

T429.The surviving 7 is legible, but the lost preceding date zone does not certify another digit. The opening Latin remains italic with its æ ligature; no external quotation is used to change iræ. The repeated imperatives, both negative clauses and unhyphenated lui constructions remain. The wrapped con-/trariez and the opening of temps retain identifiable t contours despite nearby damaged-margin traces; those traces do not establish extra wording.

T23.The quoted present/past shift and repeated falling remain. Or rather marks Joubert’s revision. A close parallel occurs in La Fontaine’s Les Filles de Minée, where the narrator describes Thisbé’s death. The directly checked electronic witness reads range, whereas this source prints rangea; the English retains that present/past shift. No particular copy is identified, and no character name is inserted into Joubert’s text.

T430.The quoted formulation changes from present tombe to past rangea; that tense sequence remains literal. The final period is inside the quotation. Vêtemens retains its spelling; the repeated dans and the corrective Ou plutôt remain. The right-edge qu’il and la are abraded but retain identifiable forms, without a certified extra word.

T24.Both occurrences of the opening Latin are freshly translated alike, and the final Latin remains a separate maxim. All three English counterparts are italic. The deed/intention relation, gratitude’s breadth, cubic/square explanation, face image and correction Morality and laws remain. The comma after maxims and the movement from singular truth to plural which are beautiful and true follow the source. Corneille’s Discours des trois unités also cites these expressions, in reverse order, as a legal maxim concerning favor and rigor. Here Joubert applies them to gratitude and moral truth; no direct borrowing is established.

T431.Both source paragraphs remain under the clear day 8. The two occurrences of Favores ampliandi and final Odia restringenda are italic; surrounding French is roman. The source moves from singular vérité to plural qui sont belles et vraies without repair. The comma after maximes, nominal La morale et les loix, repeated cubic/square terms and the three viewpoint prepositions remain. Native right-edge inspection supports the period after volonté and the worn but identifiable endings in les, face, morale and quelque.

T25.The second paragraph and all three directional formulations remain. Square/cubic is not normalized to a geometric explanation beyond Joubert’s words.