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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

YEAR 1817

Only respect for the prince must take away liberty.

November 15.

Whether it would be unpious to say that heaven has condemned us to obscure religions...

November 16.

With custom and authority destroyed, each person makes habits and manners according to their nature: coarse ones, if their nature is coarse.

November 23.

Lafontaine’s nectar and ambrosia.

November 24.

One must first clothe everything one looks at and see nothing stark naked. One must place at least one’s goodwill and a certain amenity between oneself and all objects (to be good and to be a poet).

To consecrate the meadows to spring, the plains to summer, the hillsides to autumn, the foot of the rocks to winter, and the woods to the whole year, for they are pleasant in every season.

November 26.

Locke’s philosophy, or the art of making one’s mind cold.

November 28.

God has delivered the world and delivered himself to our disputes, alas!

Pluquet, in his treatise on superstition and atheism, wants to banish all religious passions from religion. As unwise as those who wanted to banish all natural passions from society. One could say of fear and desire taken abstractly everything he says of enthusiasm and superstition.

November 30.

What they punished in heresy was revolt or sedition against the Church. Thus the rebels or dissidents claimed to be the Church.

December 4.

Impetuosities of mind from the ardors of youth.

December 9.

Those who would like to govern love republics; those who want to be well governed love only monarchy.

T101.The source makes respect the grammatical agent and seul restricts that agent. Must retains the normative force of il faut; no institution or specific ruler is supplied. Only is placed before the complete agent to make its scope immediately clear.

T210.The peaked upper mark in ôte is supported by color/native 399. The singular seul remains in its printed position, without a French interpretive recast.

T102.Whether preserves the dependent inquiry without supplying a question mark absent from the source. Unpious deliberately follows non pieux rather than intensifying it to wicked. The plural religions and terminal ellipsis remain.

T103.The opening condition, both practices, repeated nature/coarse and final if remain. Singular their follows American house usage without changing the general claim; English uses a colon for the source semicolon.

T104.Both mythical food-and-drink images and the nominal fragment remain. The source name is not modernized or expanded into a particular work.

T213.The complete 23 and literal one-word Lafontaine remain. The nominal pair is not completed.

T105.The two must clauses, first, everything/nothing, at least/certain and all remain. Clothing and nakedness are retained as the concrete metaphor. Amenity keeps a quality of gentleness or pleasantness, not an added amenity in the modern facilities sense. Both purposes remain in the parenthesis.

T106.The infinitive, five ordered allocations and final reason remain. They refers to the woods; the final all-season claim does not expand to every landscape.

T215.The infinitive, all five places/periods, literal hyver and causal plural pronoun remain. The left à and car are abraded but identifiable, not current reproduction gaps.

T107.The nominal equivalence and deliberately physical cold remain. Joubert’s characterization is not softened to calm or detached.

T216.The complete 26 and nominal equivalence with its reflexive causative remain.

T108.The repeated delivered, reflexive himself, shared destination and final lament remain. The passage is not expanded into a theological explanation.

T109.The two banish/all/passions formulations, present/past difference, fragmentary comparison and conditional could remain. The final two pairs retain their distinct terms. No exact title, cited passage or claim about Pluquet is supplied beyond Joubert’s wording.

T218.Pluquet and the printed de la superstition et l’athéisme construction remain without an added preposition. The comparison, repeated bannir/toutes/passions, distinct present/imperfect/conditional forms and fear/desire pair remain. Ban-/nir is a complete wrap. Lower nir/ceux/On/ce openings retain identifiable foreground shapes despite abrasion; athéisme has a plain dotted i, not a diaeresis.

T110.The object of punishment and both alternatives remain. English makes the initial relation explicit without supplying the unnamed they or a historical episode; the repeated Church remains.

T219.The complete 30 is identifiable with some reproduction wear. Both plain capital Eglise forms and literal dissidans remain. The two imperfect clauses, alternative pairs and inversion retain their wording; the initial article l’ is readable despite edge abrasion.

T111.The nominal plural and causal par remain. Impetuosities keeps the surging force of fougues without turning it into an established diagnostic or moral fault.

T220.The complete 4 and nominal formulation remain. The source collation records the 867 wholly unknown first day, complete later days, qualified left starts, literal authorité/nud/hyver/Pluquet/dissidans/Eglise, plain athéisme i and upper marks in ôte/poëte, with the individual reading qualifications retained.

T112.The conditional wish and present want, active/passive contrast, plural republics and singular monarchy, and final only remain.

T221.The complete 9 remains. Conditional voudroient and present veulent are distinct; the active/passive contrast, bien and restrictive final negative remain.