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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

YEAR 1821

Rousseau. His mind inhabited the moral world, but not the [other] one above it.

Voltaire. Knew clarity and played in light, but [to] scatter it and break all its rays like a wicked [fine] gold (sic).

Montesquieu. Knew, felt, loved and obtained only [brilliance], with a little gravity that comes to him from his subjects and not [from] himself.

Diderot. He saw no light and had only ingenious whims.

Raynal. In love with words and grandiloquence.

Saint Pierre. The sun and what resembles it.

Chateaubriand. Something of everything.

Fontanes. Borrowing, but from universal reason, and a [purity] of taste.

With its gravitations, its impenetrabilities, its attractions, its [impulses], and all these blind forces about which the learned make so much noise, and with its enormous masses that so frighten our eyes, what is all matter but a hollowed grain of metal, a [grain] of glass made hollow, a well-blown bubble of water in which [light and shade] play their game; a shadow, finally, in which nothing weighs except upon itself, is impenetrable except [to] itself, attracts or retains anything but itself or what [is] analogous to itself, and seems strong and immense only to the extreme smallness, the infinite littleness of the portiuncules or particles of this whole, [which] is next to nothing.

God drew his breath back into himself and the whole world disappeared. No more [theater], no more actors, no more spectators; a smoke, and the smoke of a breath, the warmth of a breath.

Boileau was right. If what one writes does not please, it is [because] it is not true. Or, if it is true, because it is not beautiful. And, if it is true and beautiful at bottom, it is because it is not well expressed, as he says. And if the saying of Louis XII that he quotes gives pleasure, it is because it partakes of the beauty and truth of the general maxim: “A king...” etc.

T50.The name fragment, past habitation, negative contrast and spatial above remain without naming the other world. [Other] contextually renders autr[…]; one is an ordinary English nominal support for the adjective and remains outside the loss brackets. No lost French ending is certified.

T128.Eight separately indented author paragraphs remain one undated unit. The clipped word ends retain autr, pou, fi, écla, d and puret. In particular the main phrase is or fi[…], not a certified complete or fin and not the apparatus conjecture orfraie. The surviving t of puret is abraded but identifiable in color. The complete word lubies is readable, but the adjacent damaged edge does not certify terminal punctuation. Its final marker records a suspected punctuation loss of uncertain presence/extent, not a recovered word or a guaranteed printed period. Literal emprumpt is independently visible in color/native 438, with m followed by p; it is not normalized to emprunt. Grandisonance and unhyphenated Saint Pierre remain. Only sic is italic; its parentheses are roman. Call 1 follows the complete closing parenthesis and precedes the separate period. Call 2 follows Saint Pierre before its period. Both apparatus paragraphs remain separate source-editor voice.

S1.Source editor’s annotationDid Joubert not mean to write orfraie?

T51.The omitted subject, two past actions, purpose and all remain. [To] contextually interprets pou[…] as the purpose connector. The source has incomplete or fi[…], not a certified complete or fin; [fine] provisionally interprets the damaged adjective while intact or remains gold. This anomalous comparison and sic are preserved. The source editor’s separate orfraie conjecture is not substituted into the body and does not establish the missing main-text letters. Only sic is italic; its parentheses are roman, and the raised annotation call follows the closing parenthesis before the separate period.

T60.The question and tentative attribution remain source-editor voice. Orfraie is retained as the proposed French word, distinct from incomplete main-text or fi[…]; the conjecture does not establish that lost ending. The 1798 Académie entry describes a nocturnal bird associated with ill omen and an unpleasant cry. That historical gloss does not settle a modern species or prove the conjecture. No correction is silently imported into the body. Only orfraie is italic in French and English; the question mark is roman. The annotation is called after the main (sic) and before its separate period.

T129.The question remains a conjecture in the source apparatus, not a correction imported into the incomplete main or fi[…]. Only orfraie is italic; the question mark has the upright roman contour visible in color/native 438.

T52.The single restriction governs all four past verbs. A little, present comes, subjects and the explicit negative source of gravity remain; no independent assessment is added. [Brilliance] and [from] are contextual whole-word readings of écla[…] and d[…], without certifying their missing endings.

T53.The two limits no/only and ingenious remain distinct; whims renders lubies without supplying a diagnosis. The complete word lubies is legible. Its following source marker records uncertain punctuation at the damaged edge, not a known missing word; the English final period is supplied punctuation and does not certify a printed French period or the extent of a loss.

T54.The nominal fragment and two objects remain. Grandiloquence contextually renders the loud rhetorical quality of literal grandisonance beside words. The earlier bounded search found no usable period entry; no external lexical authentication is claimed.

S2.Source editor’s annotationBernardin de Saint Pierre.

T55.The name remains as printed; its expansion belongs to the separate source annotation. The nominal pairing and resemblance stay unexplained. The raised source call follows the unhyphenated Saint Pierre before its baseline period; it belongs to the separate roman identification, not to the name’s spelling.

T61.The source editor’s expansion remains a separate annotation attached to the Saint Pierre paragraph. It is not promoted to a main heading or claimed as a new identification by this translator. The unhyphenated name and terminal period are roman in both languages; the raised call follows main-text Saint Pierre before its separate period.

T56.The source’s unaccented Chateaubriand is retained. Something of everything renders the compressed De tout without adding particular qualities.

T57.The nominal fragment, limiting but, universal and separate purity remain. No verb or particular borrowing source is invented. French retains literal emprumpt, with m followed by p, rather than normalizing it to emprunt. [Purity] is a contextual whole-word reading of puret[…]; the missing ending is not certified.

T58.All four opening plural forces, two with phrases, all, so much, the hollowing/bubble image and repeated itself remain. [Impulses], [grain], [is] and [which] contextually render impul[…]sions, grai[…], es[…] and qu[…]; the broad English brackets do not imply that the visible French letters are missing. [Light and shade] is the broader contextual rendering of clair-obscu[…], so its intact components also fall within the English bracket. Damaged d[…] before bruit has no separate lexical counterpart in so much noise and is not silently certified. Yeux and exiguité are complete, but their following source markers leave punctuation uncertain; English supplies the commas after eyes and extreme smallness without claiming recovered source marks or missing words. The complete letters in impé-/nétrable join without a new lexical loss merely because the wrap hyphen is uncertified. Printed [pour] has contextual English [to], distinct from reproduction-loss brackets. The negative rien is carried through the weighs/is/attracts series; only limits the last seeming. Literal atractions and scavans remain in French; portiuncules retains the marked diminutive beside particles without an independently authenticated etymology. The source final period is retained rather than replaced by a question mark.

T131.The right margin retains impul before next-line sions, d, grai, clair-obscu, es and qu without complete missing endings. The complete impé-/nétrable letter sequence can be joined at the qualified level: the é is identifiable in color although the line-end hyphen is not certified. No extra lexical gap is inserted solely for that wrap mark. Yeux and exiguité remain identifiable complete words, but their clipped adjoining edges do not certify any terminal comma. The two following markers represent suspected punctuation gaps whose presence/extent remain uncertain; no lost word is asserted. Literal atractions has one t; scavans and portiuncules remain. Printed [pour] is a roman source-editor supplement. All four plural forces, both avec clauses, the semicolon, repeated restrictive clauses and final approximate rien remain. The second phrase is ses énormes masses, not an inferred demonstrative. The source has no terminal question mark; its final point remains.

T59.The completed past actions, whole, three repeated no-more terms and final smoke/breath/warmth fragments remain. The single paragraph continues onto 907; it is not split at the page boundary. [Theater] is a contextual whole-word reading of […]héâtre at the incoming page edge. The damaged d[…] in Plus d[…] has no separate English word in no more [theater]; no lost French ending is thereby certified. The later d’une is identifiable and introduces no further bracket. The page join adds no punctuation.

T132.The paragraph crosses to 907 after the clipped d. The incoming first word retains héâtre; its leftmost t-like fragment lacks a complete stem/crossbar, in color and native 439, and is not restored. The later d’une initial is worn but identifiable, so no extra gap is inserted there. No paragraph or punctuation is added at the physical page join. Both narrative pasts, whole world, three plus terms, semicolon, repeated fumée and repeated haleine remain. All text is roman and undated; no new heading is created from the continuation.

T62.All repeated conditions, at bottom, the reported attribution and unfinished maxim remain. [Because] broadly represents par [ce que], whose printed brackets enclose only part of the French expression; it is not a reproduction loss. The quotation and historical attribution are translated without external authentication. French preserves plain-i plait, au fonds and the distinct printed forms par [ce que], parce que and par ce que. The three points in the closed A king quotation are printed ellipsis; the following etc. remains outside the quotation. All text and the source-editor brackets are roman.

T133.The worn left starts remain identifiable in color; no new loss is certified. Literal plain-i plait, au fonds and the distinct spacings par [ce que], parce que and par ce que remain. The printed roman [ce que] is an editorial supplement, not current damage. All conditions and repeated causal relations, Louis XII, closed quoted fragment and separate etc. remain. The three points inside the quotation are printed ellipsis. This one undated paragraph is roman throughout.