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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

YEAR 1821

October 26.

There is an abstract light, which also colors self-evidence... Tints.. Intelligence. Its pure radiance causes its joys, and its [secret] diffusion makes all our serenities. It shines for us of itself, independently of objects and of every application. It shows in its [true] light everything that cannot be seen.

Our mind is like our eye; light is what illuminates it, [and] it is not everything that instructs it.

Add. Direction toward the true. Needle, etc. Whence... [Habitual] direction toward the true makes the mind sound, and the tendency toward the beautiful and toward the evident shows eminent minds.

In study and in knowledge, its radiance makes all our joys, [and] its secret diffusion our secret serenities.

Wisdom is repose in light. I speak of that [light] which illuminates our intelligence and without which one sees nothing of [what] cannot be seen. Happy are the minds [.....] to play [in] its rays.

October 24.

(And for the last time, I hope.) Wisdom is repose in light. But it is light itself that, through the daylight [it] spreads and the enchantments it works by coloring [abstractions] like light clouds and lending self-evidence the radiance of [serenity], often urges wisdom to play in its rays.

Chapter 2. — Truth consists in conceiving or imagining persons or things as God sees them. And virtue, in [giving] oneself goodness. And goodness, in having only the feelings one can [believe] an angel would have.

— And the most horrible catastrophe imaginable, the conflagration [of] the universe, what could it be but the crackling, the [flash] and the evaporation of a grain of gunpowder at a candle.

T74.The nominal interruptions, two dots after Tints, repeated light and unseeable/seen paradox remain. Self-evidence carries évidence’s immediate intellectual manifestness, supported by the 1798 Académie entry. Also preserves the printed et before qui colore. The possessive its remains open where intelligence/light may compete; no new subject is named. [Secret] and [true] contextually render secrett[…] and vra[…], with whole-word English brackets rather than recovered French endings. The marker after complete Teintes.. denotes only possible additional punctuation of uncertain presence and extent; English retains the two certain points without inventing a third point or a word. The earlier three points after évidence are printed ellipsis. Literal joyes remains in French; indépendamment is complete across the wrap and requires no lexical bracket. The complete October 26 date governs all four paragraphs, all roman.

T138.The complete October 26 date governs four paragraphs. The right margin retains secrett, vra, e, habituell and the later e without complete missing endings. The complete indépendam-/ment and évi-/dent letter sequences are joined; no lexical loss is inserted merely because their wrap hyphens fall in the damaged edge. Two complete baseline points survive after Teintes. Its following marker denotes only a suspected additional punctuation loss of uncertain presence/extent; it does not certify a third point or a missing word. The earlier three points after évidence and after D’où are printed ellipses. Literal joyes, secrett[…] and later complete secrette/secrettes, Eguille, scavoir and éminents remain. Add. stays inside the third body paragraph, without expansion or promotion to a heading. All text is roman.

T75.The mind/eye simile and illumination/instruction distinction remain. The negative limits light’s identity with all instruction; English does not silently invert the assertion. [And] is the contextual whole-word rendering of e[…], without certifying a recovered final t. The comma before this conjunction is English punctuation; the source has no comma there.

T76.Add. remains a manuscript cue in the body. Needle contextually renders literal Eguille in the nearby direction imagery without inserting compass. All fragments, repeated toward and the evident/eminent echo remain; sound renders juste contextually, not as a claim of moral righteousness. [Habitual] broadly renders habituell[…] without recovering its ending in French. Évident is complete across the wrap and receives no lexical bracket; literal éminents is preserved. The three points after D’où are printed ellipsis. English supplies the comma after Needle and the comma before and; neither is certified as French punctuation.

T77.Both in phrases, repeated secret, all and the omitted second verb remain. The possessive continues the light imagery without supplying a new named antecedent. [And] contextually renders the damaged e[…]; the preceding comma is supplied in English. French retains scavoir, joyes, secrette and secrettes. The two complete secret forms receive no reproduction-loss brackets.

T78.The first person, double visual paradox and repeated light remain. [Light] contextually renders lumièr[…], and [in] renders dan[…]. [What] broadly represents damaged c[…] together with intact qui; its brackets do not claim that the entire French relative is lost. The separate five-point [.....] is the printed editorial omission, not a current reproduction loss; the incomplete construction around it is deliberately not repaired. Literal jouër retains its qualified paired upper marks. All text and both kinds of brackets are roman.

T139.The clipped words retain lumièr, c and dan; the r contour is worn but identifiable in color, while the missing endings are not recovered. The separate five-point bracketed [.....] is printed editorial omission, not a current reproduction gap. Original color/native 440 confirms five baseline points inside the printed brackets and the two upper e-components of jouër. The surrounding infinitival construction is left incomplete; no missing predicate is invented. All text is roman.

T79.The parenthetic hope remains in this paragraph. Light/daylight, the cloud simile, coloring, lending and often remain. Light is the agent that urges wisdom to play; sagesse is not replaced by the wise man. Self-evidence retains the immediate intellectual sense attested in the 1798 Académie entry; enchantments follows prestiges without turning it into prestige. In the opening repose in light, the damaged French generic article l[…] has no independent English word, and none is added solely to carry a bracket. [It] contextually renders ell[…] within intact qu’; [abstractions] and [serenity] broadly render abstraction[…] and sér[…]nité. These are English interpretations, not certified French completions. Jouër retains its qualified upper marks. The complete October 24 date follows October 26 without reordering.

T140.The complete October 24 date follows October 26 without reordering. The opening parenthesis belongs to the single body paragraph. Right-edge l, qu’ell and abstraction retain incomplete endings. Before next-line nité, only sér is certified: the next e-like and raised fragments do not establish a complete accented é. The printed subject of excite is light; the thing urged is literal la sagesse, not le sage. Both occurrences of lumière, day/light relation, simile and final jouër remain. The visible e-pair supports the qualified diaeresis. No missing word is inferred at complete line starts.

T80.The inline chapter cue, both or alternatives, repeated And and two omitted predicates remain. Only governs the permitted feelings, and can believe/would have preserves modality rather than certifying an angel’s sentiments. [Giving] and [believe] contextually render donne[…] and croir[…], with whole-word brackets; oneself represents intact se. Personnes is complete across its wrap and requires no loss bracket. French retains sentimens and conditional auroit. English omits the French comma before comme, without changing that comparison.

T141.The complete per-/sonnes letter sequence is joined without a lexical gap solely for the lost wrap hyphen. Donne and croir retain incomplete final contours, so their endings remain unresolved. Literal sentimens and conditional auroit remain. Chapitre 2 is an inline body cue. Both repeated Et and the two elliptical virtue/goodness predicates remain; the restrictive ne…que and can/would relations are not strengthened. All text is roman.

T81.The opening dash/And, superlative, universe and three effects remain. The question-shaped sentence retains the source’s final period. [Of] contextually renders d[…], and [flash] broadly renders écla[…] without certifying the lost endings. Could is an idiomatic English modal adaptation of future pourra-t’elle, not a claim that the French verb is conditional. Gunpowder contextually specifies poudre in this explosive comparison; the three terms are not reduced to a single explosion.

T142.The main text is singular la plus horrible catastrophe imaginable, unlike the provisional navigation incipit. Future pourra-t’elle retains the apostrophe; the question-shaped sentence ends in a printed period. Only d and écla survive the two clipped endings. The initial dash/conjunction, universe and three effects remain. The complete chandelle is at the intact end of the last line, distinct from a later divided occurrence in another owner.