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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

According to Plato

One is never mediocre when one has much good sense and many good feelings.

October 18.

Of those whose soul remains a stranger to their talent and makes them ordinary men.

October 20.

Those dry minds that need only doctrines or dry thoughts.

I. “Every action, to be well done (say the people of the East), requires a particular character.

II. There is always much light in the sayings of the people of the East.

III. Like the tunic of the eye on which everything is painted, everything drawn or everything engraved — such is the tunic of the soul; but an immaterial tunic, or of a single breadth, or of an ethereal matter.

Rules; and if there are no rules, authority.

Fl-r-tt-’s “I thought it was me.”

October 22.

Piety is a sublime wisdom that surpasses all the others.

The essence (or the soul) of the diamond, properly speaking, is light, modified by a vitrification suited to reflecting it in star form.

October 24.

Deformed systems that bring forth in our mind only ideas of deformity.

The clarity of a book. There are ideas that seem clear […] and cease to be so when one wishes to recall them. This is because they are not in harmony with the clarities of our mind. They are only individual clarities of a fantastic truth. It is the light of a painting, a feigned and painted light, an artificial light.

One does indeed find in certain books artificial lights, quite like those in paintings and produced by the same sort of mechanism, by piling up obscurities in some parts and diluting them in others. From this arises a certain magic of chiaroscuro that illuminates nothing, but seems to give some clarity to the page on which it is found, and which would be more truly illuminated if all the paper were white.

What is called light in a painting is not light, [properly] speaking, but the obscure set against the dark. One [can] thus innocently deceive the mind with words.

October […].

“O Forgiver!” A beautiful epithet that Muslims give to [God]!

“Forgive me all that you know of me!” A beautiful prayer! [And] full indeed of humility.

Humility is as fitting for man before God as [modesty] is for a child before men.

October […].

Piety binds us to what is most powerful and to what [is] weakest; to what is [most] powerful in nature, which [is] God, and to what is weakest around us, such as our [parents] (for youth is a strength, and we are younger [than] they), the old, the poor, the infirm, the unfortunate, the [afflicted]. Compassion is a kind of piety. I define this virtue as [a] respectful tenderness. It follows that harsh words, cold or not very submissive manners are contrary to piety.

T297.Never and both abundance formulations remain. Good sense and good feelings are distinct conditions, not a single quality.

T298.The Of fragment and soul’s two predicates remain. Ordinary renders vulgaires without supplying obscenity; the relation between soul and talent is not explained away.

T664.The nominal-relative De opening and singular âme/talent remain. The date 18 follows 19 as printed.

T299.The relative fragment, repeated dry and only/or remain. No kind of doctrine is identified.

T665.The nominal-relative opening, repeated dry judgment and restrictive ne…que remain.

T300.The first Roman label and opening quotation remain without a supplied closing mark. The source’s broad geographic attribution remains unverified; particular character is not narrowed to a personality trait or an action’s style.

T666.All three Roman paragraphs remain separate. The opening guillemet before Chaque has no visible closing counterpart before II; no closure is supplied. Both orientaux occurrences are lowercase. The first où is accented; after se dessine the raised horizontal/vertical artifacts do not securely certify an accent, so qualified plain ou is retained. Native léz has a distinct acute and final z. The repeated tunique, nominal qualification and two later ou alternatives remain.

T301.The separate Roman paragraph, always and much remain. The attribution is kept broad and unassigned to a specific text or culture.

T302.The third Roman paragraph keeps the tunic comparison, three repeated everything forms and both or alternatives. Single breadth renders léz in the cloth image: the Académie’s 1798 Lé defines the width of cloth between its selvages. That lexical support does not certify the printed final z or authorize a spelling change. No modern eye layer or physical theory of the soul is supplied.

T303.The nominal clauses and conditional alternative remain without supplying a source of authority.

T667.The nominal alternatives, semicolon, conditional negative and repeated règles remain.

T304.The possessive nominal fragment and quoted first-person wording remain. Fl-r-tt- retains its literal abbreviated form and is not expanded into a named speaker.

T305.The singular kind of wisdom and all-others comparison remain; the claim is not supplied with an external religious doctrine.

T306.Essence/soul, light and vitrification retain Joubert’s physical-metaphysical image. In star form renders en étoile without specifying a modern optical effect; the claim is not corrected into current mineralogy.

T307.The nominal fragment, repeated deformity root and restrictive only remain. Bring forth preserves the birth image and does not identify a philosophical system. The French retains the printed spelling systhèmes.

T670.Systhèmes retains its printed th. The nominal-relative formulation and restrictive ne…que remain, with the repeated difforme root.

T308.The explicit gap is not filled. Clear/clarities/light and their repetitions remain, as do seeming, remembering and harmony. Fantastic may mean imagined or illusory here rather than excellent; the feigned/painted wordplay is retained.

T671.All three paragraphs remain separate, with only the last continuing onto page 763. The bracketed ellipsis after claires is already printed and is distinct from the two newly marked reproduction losses. Phantastique, assés and méchanisme remain literal. Native page 763 preserves only nt after the propre wrap; the preceding m/e-like fragments do not certify complete letters. The next damaged opening preserves only ut. No peut or proprement is recovered in French. The several clarté/lumière/obscur/sombre terms, full negative and restrictive ne…que remain.

T309.The lights/obscurities/clarity images, piling/diluting contrast, nothing and only-seeming effect remain. Chiaroscuro retains the art term clair-obscur. The final conditional white-paper comparison is not replaced by a general maxim about obscurity.

T310.The single paragraph continues onto page 763. Light renders nominal clair in the painting context while the preceding clarity keeps its intellectual relation. Obscure and dark retain obscur/sombre as distinct relative shades. [Properly] and [can] interpret proprement and peut from propre[…]nt and […]ut; speaking renders intact dit outside the bracket. The final innocently and possibility remain. These reproduction losses are distinct from the earlier printed bracketed ellipsis.

T311.The invocation and admiring exclamation remain. [God] interprets Dieu from […]eu; the capitalized English A after the quotation follows sentence styling, without changing the source’s lowercase belle. The broad attribution is Joubert’s; no particular prayer, Arabic wording or divine-name identification is supplied.

T672.All three paragraphs remain separate. The day remnant does not certify a numeral. Before eu the tall merged fragment does not certify a complete i or the lost capital; before destie the preceding o-like curve is incomplete. The missing connector before bien is not recovered. Ô retains its raised mark; belle after the first quotation is lowercase, while Belle after the second is capitalized. Scavez remains literal.

T312.All and the divine knowledge of the speaker remain. The two following exclamatory fragments are not folded into the quoted prayer; its exact external source is unlocated. [And] contextually supplies the missing connector before bien; it is not claimed recovered.

T313.The two different virtues, man/child and God/men remain in their parallel relations; the sentence does not identify humility with modesty. [Modesty] interprets modestie from […]destie.

T314.Printed source-editor [plus] corresponds to [most], distinct from reproduction losses. [Is] in the first weakest clause represents the damaged existential auxiliary a through ordinary English restructuring; the second [is] interprets est before Dieu. [Parents], [than], [afflicted] and [a] interpret parens, qu’, affligés and une from the damaged portions. Parents is contextual in the youth comparison; parens can also mean relatives. Before manners the damaged generic article is interpreted as les; ordinary English omits that generic article, so it has no separately bracketed English word. The comma-separated subjects preserve the source’s list. All six groups, compassion/piety and respectful tenderness remain. Not very submissive keeps the degree in peu soumises.

T673.The day remains wholly lost. The bracketed plus is already printed; the other bracketed markers identify reproduction losses. The interrupted openings do not certify the auxiliary before de, the word before Dieu, the beginnings before rens, the component before the surviving apostrophe, the first damaged f before fligés, or the missing openings before ne and s. The n in ne is retained with its cramped left contour qualified. Thin displaced marks above ou do not certify an accent, so plain ou remains qualified. The comparative plus, both weakest/strongest relations, parenthesis, and degree peu soumises remain.