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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

YEAR 1813

One must not extend too far what is very clear. These useless explanations, these overly continuous expositions offer only a long whiteness and [they] cause us all its tedium. It is the uniformity of a wall, of a long piece of linen.

June 11.

In physics one must prefer what is most certain and most established; and in metaphysics what is most ingenious. For here it is a matter of spirit, and everything spiritual comes close to it. In matter, on the contrary, solidity is needed.

June 14.

Animation. A butterfly (the butterfly of clothes) is only animated dust.

June 15.

The ancients admitted what is beautiful and what is not beautiful: beautiful, and not beautiful, the beautiful and the nonbeautiful.

To know men, one must risk something. Whoever risks nothing of his own knows nothing.

June 18.

In clean, fresh clothes there is a sort of youth with which old age ought to surround itself.

This philosophy full of flowers, of charms and of playfulness: a science as merry as it is sublime.

June 19.

Thus, everything would turn around God blindly or with eyes closed!

June 20.

— for a reason acknowledged even by the most cynical modern philosophers (see Diderot): it is that “the sight of certain parts of the body in their nakedness inevitably leads to vice.”

June 21.

Only darkness is gloomy, and nothing that saddens is luminous.

The sky and climate of books. φ is the gloomy beau. He powders himself with reddish powder.

It is within oneself that one sees. And even the angels, it is within themselves and deep down that they see! God: God painted, sculpted in some fashion, and reflected.

T90.The degrees too and very, repeated these and the physical long-whiteness image remain. Both wall and linen are retained; no new rule about concision replaces the comparison. [They] contextually interprets ils from […]ls, preserving the source’s repeated subject after and without certifying the missing i.

T492.The initial letter before ls is materially incomplete at the left edge and is not restored. The t at the wrapped opening of inutiles retains its stem/crossbar despite abrasion. The final longue starts in the ordinary line column; irregular marks farther left do not establish an extra lost word. The two ces phrases and restrictive qu’une remain.

T91.The two disciplines and distinct criteria remain, with the last matter/solidity relation. Spirit/spiritual retains the shared French root while leaving its mind or wit range open; it does not identify a religious doctrine. The complete Académie dictionary entry of 1798 gives spirituel both an incorporeal sense and an ingenious sense for things; those senses support retaining the wordplay without imposing a single doctrinal meaning.

T92.The opening term, restrictive only and repeated animate root remain. Butterfly retains Joubert’s repeated papillon, including the clothes parenthesis, rather than silently replacing one occurrence with moth or identifying a species.

T494.The detached opening and parenthetic qualification remain in one paragraph. The printed vêtemens and restrictive n’est qu’une remain.

T93.The Greek and Latin expressions are freshly translated before the repeated French formulation. All three stages and negative forms remain. Only the two English beautiful words in the middle Latin-derived stage are italic, matching both printed pulchrum occurrences; the surrounding and not and punctuation remain roman. The Greek letters are retained in French with their compressed diacritics explicitly qualified, without identifying an external source.

T94.The repeated know, something/nothing and of his own remain. No kind of property or particular risk is supplied.

T95.The sort-of qualification, contrasting ages and surrounding image remain. Ought retains the source’s modality.

T96.The initial nominal description and colon remain. Science keeps the broad knowledge sense, with merry and sublime in equal comparison; no school is named. Charms renders aménités as pleasant or gracious qualities of style; the Académie dictionary of 1798 expressly records this aesthetic sense. No magical meaning is intended.

T498.The two nominal formulations joined by the colon remain without a supplied finite verb. The literal enjoument is retained.

T97.The conditional, orbiting image, two blindness formulations and exclamation remain. No particular astronomical or theological account is supplied. Eyes renders the contextually clear term whose source spelling is qualified literal ïeux; the French is not silently changed to yeux.

T98.The initial dependent fragment, even, superlative, parenthetic direction and bounded quotation remain. See renders vid. No particular Diderot work or original quotation witness has been identified. The English period is inside the closing quotation in American style; the external French period remains unchanged.

T500.The initial dash and prepositional fragment remain. The parenthetic vid. stays unexpanded and roman. Vuë is a qualified diaeresis reading supported by two raised components. Thin horizontal artifacts above par do not certify an accent; plain par is retained. The exact quoted span remains.

T99.The two restrictions and distinct gloom/sadness/light terms remain. No referent or psychological explanation is supplied.

T501.The restrictive opening and the negative second clause remain.

T100.The sky/climate opening, opaque phi-like glyph and repeated powder image remain. Gloomy beau renders the handsome, melancholy figure of le beau ténébreux. The complete Académie dictionary entry of 1798 attests a personal sense of gloom or melancholy; it does not establish the phrase’s origin. The coded figure remains unidentified.

T502.The single phi-like Greek glyph is retained literally without a referent or name expansion. The nominal opening and the repeated poudre word family remain.

T101.The reflexive locations, even, repeated God and three visual forms remain. The unexpected exclamation after see follows the qualified native mark after voient, with a reproduction artifact still possible. It interrupts the syntax before God and is not silently replaced by ordinary object order. The English comma marks the left-dislocated angels without supplying a new subject or connective. Source même and au fonds remain literal.