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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

YEAR 1814

July 26. (notebook.)

To treat everything with simplicity, even composite objects, without regarding them as simple.

July 29.

The three regions, the three worlds. The intelligible or higher, the moral or intermediate, and the terrestrial. The one above and the one below act upon the one in the middle: the first through its influences and its lights, the second through its shadow and through its vapor.

Fire, brilliance and clarity; the body, its shadow and its penumbra; sound, echo, almost-echo: everything has some shadow, some glimmer or some reverberation. (The rebounding.)

July 23.

Often thoughts can touch and determine the mind only through the point of words.

Monday, August 1.

Zumbo (a Sicilian sculptor) liked to model (in wax) human anatomy: that of the flesh, that of the muscles and even that of the skin. (Saw his sculptures today at the Palais Royal, no. 107.)

Among Jean Zumbo’s works, one cites corruption, or the dying man and the dead man. Pigal was the French Zumbo through his natural taste for the same kind of subjects and expressions.

Zumbo worked in Marseille in 1701.

Zumbo wished to paint joy and sorrow in all their degrees and with all their expressions in the pictures of the nativity and the descent from the cross, the only ones of his that are known. (See his figure of Joseph of Arimathea.)

August 2.

Neither in the arts, nor in logic, nor in life must one in any way treat an idea as a thing.

August 4.

A good man, skilled in teaching.

August 5.

The manufacture of scholars. How scholars are manufactured. — These are the barrage waters made at Tivoli. Everything is there except the natural. They have some usefulness, but their artificial qualities evaporate very quickly. Their worth lies only in their use, and not in their essence. This comparison is not very good, but I use it until I find a better one. Finally, all these scholars by art resemble poets by art. True scholars, true poets become so through their pleasure more than through their labor. What impels them into their studies and keeps them there is not ambition but their genius.

August 6.

Questions one ought not to have entered into.

August 7.

This structure that carries its outline with it, color its reflection, beauty its brilliance.

August 9.

Of elegance acquired and transmitted, but neither innate nor personal. (It proves only fortunate studies or fortunate times.)

August 11.

Men’s true opinions and true feelings form slowly from something habitual, and not from something sudden. Constraint, or rather restraint, is very apt to make them more sincere, more lively, more complete and more lasting.

T269.The infinitive, everything, even and without remain. Composite and simple preserve the distinction between the objects and their treatment. The notebook circumstance belongs on the date line, separately from this prose.

T545.The complete date and roman notebook circumstance share the opening date line; carnet is not body text or a new heading. The contrast between composés and simples is retained without treating objects as simple.

T270.The three nominal regions, both or alternatives and the two kinds of action remain. The first and second in the final sentence refer to the above/below pair, not the first two members of the earlier threefold list. No particular cosmological source is assigned.

T546.The three nominal regions retain their alternatives and separate sentences. Influences and lumières are plural; the upper and lower regions act upon the middle one. No verb is supplied to the final parallel phrases.

T271.All three sequences and the repeated some remain. Almost-echo preserves the coined presqu’écho. Rebounding retains the physical image of rejaillissement rather than claiming a modern optical or acoustic mechanism; the final parenthetic noun remains a fragment.

T547.The two semicolons, colon, repeated quelque and final parenthetic nominal sentence remain. Presqu’écho keeps its apostrophe; rejaillissement has no inserted acute accent.

T272.Often, can and only retain their scope. Point keeps the sharp physical and verbal image of pointe rather than silently substituting an abstract conclusion. The printed July 23 follows July 29 and is not reordered.

T273.The three parenthetical passages, three anatomical relations, even and the subjectless Saw remain. The numbered location and today are not turned into an invented museum or historical date.

T549.All four paragraphs remain under the complete weekday and date, whose er is visibly raised. The two parenthetic material/observation phrases in paragraph 1 remain distinct; n° 107 is an address-like body reference, not a date. The three celle clauses and même remain. Only corruzione in paragraph 2 is italic; the preceding article and the alternative French wording are roman. Jean Zumbo and Pigal are literal and unexpanded. The historical year 1701 stays in the separate third paragraph. Paragraph 4 keeps joye, all repeated degrees/expressions, lower-case nativité and descente de croix, connoisse, and the parenthetic Vid. reference. No attribution or biographical correction is inferred.

T274.Corruption freshly renders the italic Italian corruzione; only its corresponding word receives that emphasis. Jean and Pigal retain the collated printed name forms rather than silently substituting biographical corrections. The second comparison remains Joubert’s attribution. English introduces among the works as the ordinary idiomatic completion of on cite de, without naming additional works; the added comma before or articulates the alternative.

T275.This remains a separate paragraph within the August unit. The year 1701 is a historical assertion in Joubert’s text, not its composition date; no external biographical verification is claimed.

T276.The two all formulations, joy/sorrow pair and only restriction remain. The only ones of his that are known gives les seuls qu’on connoisse de lui with pictures as its immediate antecedent. It neither attributes the knowing to Zumbo himself nor broadens the claim to every kind of work he made. See renders roman Vid. without an invented internal target. No surviving work has been independently identified.

T277.All three neither/nor terms and in any way retain the prohibition’s scope. Idea and thing are not reduced to a specific philosophical doctrine.

T278.The fresh literal rendering preserves printed docendi, teaching, rather than substituting the familiar dicendi of a different rhetorical formula. The whole Latin maxim and English counterpart remain italic. No exact attribution is claimed. Compare the different formula in Quintilian XII.1.1, attributed there to Cato, which has dicendi, speaking. The related passage does not establish an exact attribution for Joubert’s docendi version. The English comma gives the appositional pause without adding a verb.

T279.The two manufacturing formulations, water comparison, evaporation image, only restriction and the author’s own reservation remain. Barrage retains the literal French word, whose intended reference here is unresolved; it is not a certified English damming gloss or a substitution of the place-name Barèges. No spa, recipe or location beyond printed Tivoli is inferred. By art remains repeated and distinct from final genius. The source’s earlier scavants and final scavans are retained as printed in French. The one paragraph continues onto 794.

T280.The relative nominal fragment and past negative obligation remain. English supplies ordinary impersonal one without identifying a person or adding a reason.

T553.The nominal opening and relative negative past modal remain; faloit has one l. No answer or governing clause is supplied.

T281.The opening relative formulation and two subsequent elliptical relations remain. Outline renders pourtour; the body is not completed into three independent finite sentences.

T554.The structure retains its relative clause, followed by two nominal parallels with omitted verbs. Soi and all three possessives remain without specifying an object outside the paragraph.

T282.The Of fragment, acquired/transmitted distinction, both negatives and only/or remain. Fortunate preserves the repeated heureux without silently substituting merit or happiness alone.

T555.The opening De fragment, acquired/transmitted contrast, alternatives and complete parenthesis remain. Ne…que is restrictive; the two heureux forms describe studies or times, not a newly supplied person.

T283.Both true formulations, slowly and habitual/sudden remain. Or rather preserves the explicit correction from contrainte to retenue. English them contextually includes both preceding opinions and feelings; the feminine vives and complettes permit the narrower grammatical attachment to opinions. The literal French double t is retained.