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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

YEAR 1806

January 18.

— For it took mad minds to love such follies. — Indeed, in that century, and at that time above all, there were more mad minds than strong minds.

January 19.

The arts make precious, and more precious than gold itself, materials that were not so, such as stone, marble, wood, etc. Let us throw (to parody Diderot here), let us throw this fact at financial policy to teach it to respect fine talents. But instead of calling these masterpieces kinds of talismans to which the destinies of empires are attached, it would be better to have them considered solely as trophies that must remain sacred and that one is not allowed to displace, to transport. Mr. D. has lacked wisdom here. — When statues are regarded as a legitimate ornament of victory, they will become one more cause for war.

January 20.

Luxury and the arts. Their differences. Luxury is the enemy of the arts, or at least it is fatal to them, for it perverts their use. (Mr. D. on luxury: Asia has luxury and no art...)

Talismans!... This image makes them palladia that each people will wish to seize in its turn.

Let us recognize equally as masters of words those who know how to abuse them and those who know how to use them. But the latter are the kings of languages, and the former their tyrants.

... and this habit of perpetually coining one’s ingots and putting them into circulation means that one no longer has treasures within oneself.

Judgment alone has never caused a good work to be made.

January 21.

— proud of knowing: how many joists the floors of each house in their town have, how many feet each façade, how many angles each framework.

Their gods themselves had a law, fate. Fate: what had been said, settled.

“Without language indeed the most divine author...” (Boileau...) But he is guided by the law of all languages when he speaks better than the language. And (one will say to me) what will prove that one has spoken better than the language? Beauty, clarity, a useful necessity.

January 23.

There are no properly necessary ideas in the world except those everyone has.

January 26.

Religion has its dogmas, but purely theological and revealed ones. As for metaphysical and reasoned dogmas, it leaves them to disputants. It does not say, for example, that the soul is immortal, but that it will be eternally rewarded in such and such a place and in this or that manner or punished for the evil or good a man will have done. The first of these truths is too commonplace in its eyes for it to speak of it. Its faith has vaster certainties, and its knowledge comes to it from heaven.

Unless one has some indulgence and some respect for the author, half a serious book always makes one impatient when it is new and says new things. We understand nothing of what we have never thought. One must enter into others’ ideas if one wishes to gain some profit from conversations and books. When a doctrinal book contains clarities that will be able to please us, it matters to us to endure, without heeding them, the preliminary obscurities that might put us off.

T27.Mad and strong preserve the direct contrast of fols and forts. Esprit fort could also name someone who prided himself on rejecting received or religious beliefs; that historical use gives the contrast a possible further edge. No particular century or group is supplied where this fragment leaves it unnamed.

T28.The repeated Let us throw preserves the declared parody of Diderot. The abbreviated Mr. D. is not expanded into a separately certified attribution. Sacred trophies are to remain in place; the English retains both displace and transport and the warning that acquiring statues can itself become a cause for war.

T29.The parenthetical claim about Asia remains part of Joubert’s quoted or reported material, with its printed ellipsis. It is not presented as an independently established account of Asian art. The initial Mr. D. remains unexpanded.

T30.Palladia are objects believed to safeguard a city or people, extending the ancient name of the protective statue of Pallas at Troy. The English uses the plural palladia for the source’s uninflected des palladium. The term here does not denote the metal.

T31.The latter refers to those who know how to use words; the former refers to those who know how to abuse them. Both are first acknowledged as masters, before the distinction between kings and tyrants.

T32.The images of coining, circulation, and treasure remain material throughout. The following remark on judgment is a separate physical paragraph within the same source block, not an editorial conclusion added to this one.

T33.Fate translates the two Latin occurrences of fatum, while Joubert’s own explanation follows it. The possessive Their has no named antecedent within this fragment, so none is supplied.

T34.The quotation parallels L’Art poétique, canto I. Joubert writes en effet where Boileau has en un mot, and stops before the completing line. The English follows Joubert’s indeed and leaves the quotation unfinished. Better than the language and a useful necessity retain the apparent paradox instead of substituting an ordinary rule of correctness.

T35.The distinction is between revealed theological claims and reasoned metaphysical claims. The English preserves the printed sequence rewarded ... or punished for the evil or good; it does not silently redistribute or reverse these terms. The first truth refers to the earlier claim of the soul’s immortality. Joubert’s characterization of religion remains his argument.

T36.Indulgence renders condescendance as a willingness to accommodate the author, without implying condescension in its modern disparaging sense. Doctrinal renders dogmatique as a work that sets out teaching. The future pourront is distinguished from the later conditional pourroient. Clarities and preliminary obscurities preserve the optical plural nouns. Unless preserves the requirement for some measure of both indulgence and respect.