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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

YEAR 1805

September 27.

So that the comedies of Plato are not only those of Plato the comic poet. The philosopher had his Thalia, his masks and his comic shoe.

September 28.

At Sens: the confessional beneath the pulpit.

September 29.

What Chateaubriand used to say: “Our passions are like women.”

September 30.

To conjure away. — Plato: he conjures away. Substituting through his reasonings, when speaking of a thing, what is only its appearance for what is its truth. He truly steals away the object in question, now withdrawing it from touch when one had one’s hand upon it, to expose it only to sight; now withdrawing it even from the eyes, to occupy only the mind with it. His turns of phrase are true cup tricks... An extraordinary language...

October 1.

For the idea of order is its compensation. The depiction of it is therefore not only beautiful, but useful.

The proper office of prudence is the search for and discovery of truth. Among us, prudence is another kind of virtue. It partakes of foresight and consists in avoiding all useless harm, whether to oneself or to others. I say all useless harm, for there are great harms of which one must in a way give the example by suffering them, seeking them, braving them. Contempt for them will be useful to those who witness it.

October 8.

(At Ste Anne.) — I resemble a poplar. This tree always looks young, even when it is old.

(Returning from St Anne. Road.) In the song, the chorus, each note ought to indicate the voice of a new character. It is a question of a multitude...

“One must enamel one’s flower bed.” (Mme de Chateaubriand’s expression.)

Those of whom one can say that “their virtue does not answer to their nature.”

October 12.

The soul subject to God, the body subject to the soul.

For agreeable words cheer the one who says them.

October 13.

Heads too narrow for the greatness of their ideas.

T107.The French distinguishes Plato the comic poet from Plato the philosopher. Thalia is the comic Muse. Brodequin denotes the footwear of comic theater; comic shoe makes that association explicit without substituting the tragic cothurnus.

T309.The date is 28, confirmed in an enlarged facsimile; no 20 substitution is made. The location remains inside the author’s nominal sentence.

T108.Escamoter means making something disappear through sleight of hand; conjure away preserves that action. The participial Substituting remains unfinished. Tours de phrase and tours de gobelets link verbal turns to conjuring with cups; cup tricks keeps the actual prop rather than reducing the image to deception in general.

T310.Escamotter/escamotte and phraze remain as printed. The participial Substituant fragment is not supplied with a finite verb. Right-edge clipping partly obscures ce, the divided question, main and sont; they are restored.

T109.The first en lacks an explicitly named antecedent here. Its compensation preserves the compression; the second of it can most naturally resume order. The fragment does not identify a particular picture or harm.

T110.The opening Latin sentence is translated within the same paragraph. Prudentia has the broader sense of wisdom or discernment; the repeated prudence lets Joubert state his own contrast with present usage. Cicero, De officiis I.15, provides a close parallel connecting wisdom and prudence with the investigation and discovery of truth and calling this their proper office. Joubert condenses and rearranges the wording; his sentence is not an exact quotation of that passage. The French prints no attribution in this block.

T111.Dommage is kept as harm throughout. The passage values the example of enduring, seeking or braving great harms, rather than claiming that all suffering is useful. The final witness is taken to witness the contempt for the harms; the French compresses that reference into en.

T312.The Latin is printed in italics and is not supplied with an attribution in this block. Comparison of enlarged facsimiles confirms prudentiae with separate a/e, not a ligature. The clipped right-edge divisions prudence and prévoyance are restored.

T112.The two printed place abbreviations differ, Ste and St; both remain in the English, without supplying an institution or standardizing the source’s form. The following Road and unfinished multitude statement stay in their own paragraph.

T313.The enlarged facsimile confirms Ste in the first location cue and St in the second. Both cues remain in their respective author paragraphs. The final multitude clause retains its ellipsis.

T113.Émailler literally means enameling and figuratively suggests varied patches of color. The translation preserves the material metaphor and the attribution instead of substituting plant colorful flowers.

T114.Answer to retains the relation in répondre à without asserting whether the virtue falls short of, or merely differs from, the person’s nature.