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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

YEAR 1816

Truth consists in imagining things as God sees them, and moderation in being moved as the angels are.

One is good only through pity. There must therefore be some pity in all our feelings for them to be good, even in our indignation, in our hatreds for the wicked. But must there also be pity in our love for God? — Yes, pity for ourselves: as there always is in gratitude.

Good hatred and good anger.

October 17.

There must therefore be in all our feelings some pity for ourselves, or some pity for others. The angels’ love for men is nothing but continual pity. No feeling without pity. Eternal compassion!

October 19.

To oppose to the century’s “liberal” ideas the “moral” ideas of all time.

October 27.

The strange verses of Ducis: For a nameless work an improbable monster. — With art and genius and joy he laid waste... This is not without truth. He did indeed make a nameless work, without substance, without duration, and he made it with art, with genius, with joy.

The public is in the cafés, in the shops, in the streets and, as I said of fame thirty years ago, “it has its feet in the mud.”

Truth consists in imagining things as God sees them (see elsewhere), and virtue in being good as the angels are. In the goodness of the angels there is some severity.

Wisdom was in his thoughts, and madness in his passions. (Bonaparte.)

The plowman, the soldier, the porter feels that he is growing old. The studious man of leisure knows it, but feels it little. He is always equally fit for his studies and for his rest.

We want justice ahead of us; we do not want it behind us. What can console us for this and bring us to resign ourselves to it is the remembrance and consideration of a sad truth, one that should seldom be recalled but must be known; here it is. In every place and in every age, every political establishment began with some injustice. And all good laws among all peoples began by consolidating what existed.

“God will give you,” says Scripture. The Émigrés ought to say of what the Republicans possess: “God gave it to them.”

“I shall take away,” says divine Providence. But by what and [by what] means does it take away? By the hands of those who seize, and the impenitence of those who retain.

My vine has fallen into your field; I follow my vine. What is decided by ordinary morality in the regular course of things must be decided by an exception to the common rules in cases of upheaval.

The Moors, the Protestants, the Inquisition, the Jesuits, the Templars, — and all the confiscations, and the vessels of the churches sold by them.

— and this noise of parties that holds my “reason in check,” as Pascal says of the noise of worlds.

T138.The parallel definitions and distinction between imagining, seeing and being moved remain. Moved leaves the nature of the emotion unspecified.

T139.Only, therefore, all, even, also and always retain their scope. Pity, rather than a gentler substitute, preserves the repeated pitié; recognition is not substituted for gratitude in reconnoissance. The plural hatreds remains.

T306.Two separately indented paragraphs remain one unit. All repeated pitié, the restrictive opening, obligation, donc, quelque/tous/même/aussi/toujours degrees, question, affirmative dash and colon remain. Sentimens and méchans are literal. The first-person plural target nous and second nominal good hatred/good anger statement remain without harmonizing the paradox. The left openings dans/indignation/aussi/nous remain identifiable in the color witness.

T140.The unsettling nominal conjunction remains a separate paragraph within the same source unit.

T141.The repeated pity, universal claims, exclusivity and final two fragments remain. Men retains hommes as the collective object of angelic love; no additional qualification is inserted.

T307.The complete 17 is qualified by softened contours but both digits remain identifiable. Repeated quelque, all, alternative, restrictive n’est que and final aucun/sans fragment remain. Plain E in Eternelle is not accented. The exclamation and all four sentences remain; hommes has an identifiable h.

T142.The infinitive remains an infinitive, and both marked adjectives keep their quotation marks. All time contrasts with the century without naming an event or party.

T143.The introductory phrase, two verse lines and commentary remain one source paragraph, with hard line breaks for the verse. The first line remains nominal and the second leaves the object of désola unstated. The three repeated with phrases and three without phrases remain. Substance renders consistance as solidity or coherence, with stability also in its period range, rather than solely subject matter; the complete 1798 Académie entry supports these related possibilities without fixing one exclusively; no work or quotation source is independently identified.

T309.The complete 27 remains. One paragraph contains introductory prose, two indented roman verse lines and prose resuming at the continuation margin; three internal newlines record that display without adding paragraphs. The first verse has its period then dash, the second a printed three-dot ellipsis. The first verse’s nominal syntax remains without an added verb or comma. Joye retains y in both occurrences. The verse repeats et; the prose repeats sans three times and avec three times. Both simple-past fit verbs, en effet and double-negative pas sans remain. Cela and consistance retain identifiable initial letters in color.

T144.All three locations, first-person retrospective interval and quoted feet remain. The source does not identify a dated earlier passage; thirty years is not converted into an invented date.

T310.Caffés visibly has doubled f in color/native 387. All three dans phrases, the comma after et, first-person imperfect, thirty years and the final quoted formulation remain. The period precedes the closing guillemet; comme and dans are complete at the left edge.

T145.The repeated formulation and change from moderation to virtue are preserved. See elsewhere freshly translates the italic Latin vide alibi; no exact internal destination is asserted. Some severity keeps the qualification in quelque sévérité.

T311.In the French source, only vide alibi is italic; its parentheses are roman and there is no punctuation inside them. The Latin spans an ordinary line wrap, not a paragraph break. No target for the elsewhere pointer is supplied. The repeated opening of e06 retains the distinct later vertu/bon version and additional severity statement. The lower margin alibi and il openings are readable. All named 855 dates, left-start contours, plain nait, stile/style, caffés and Latin/verse extents are retained as the source specialist’s qualified collation findings.

T146.The contrast, possessives and separate parenthetic identification remain in one paragraph; no diagnosis or external judgment is added.

T312.The imperfect first predicate and unexpressed second predicate remain. Bonaparte’s parenthesis wraps to the continuation margin and belongs to this paragraph, with its point inside.

T147.The singular construction across three occupations, knowing/feeling distinction, little and equally remain. Porter takes portefaix as a carrier of burdens; rest remains paired with studies, rather than rewritten as productivity. Always explicitly retains toujours.

T313.The three singular roles and singular sent remain. Scait retains sc and a plain dot-like i mark, with no inferred circumflex. The repeated object pronoun, distinction between knowing/feeling, peu, toujours/également and study/rest pair remain. Both right-edge oisif and propre are complete.

T148.The forward/backward image and repeated universal claims remain. We renders the impersonal on consistently in the opening; this and it retain the source’s reference to the preceding state of affairs rather than naming an unsupported specific event. Establishment preserves the possible act or settled institution in établissement.

T149.The future and past gifts remain distinct, with ought retaining devroient. Émigrés preserves the historical designation and Republicans the source capital. No biblical verse or particular property is supplied.

T150.The source-editor supplement [par quel] remains bracketed in its English counterpart. The two agencies and the severe impenitence remain; seize renders ravissent in the property context, not delight or enchant.

T151.I follow reads je suis as suivre in the vine-and-field context; the identical printed form could also mean I am, and the reading remains interpretive rather than a source emendation. The rule/exception contrast and obligation remain, without importing an identified legal maxim.

T152.The historical list and repeated and remain fragmentary. Them most naturally refers to the churches, the nearest feminine plural antecedent of elles; English retains the pronoun. Vessels retains vases in the church context without naming particular liturgical objects.

T315.The five named groups/institution, comma/dash, repeated et, toutes and feminine elles remain. Protestans retains the historical ending. The fragment has no supplied finite predicate.

T153.The opening dash, this, first person and quoted metaphor remain. Worlds follows mondes as printed; no presumed Pascal source is silently substituted. The comma follows American quotation style.