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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

Theory of the Political World, or On the Science of Government Considered…

— and that indeed even some of our coarsest needs start from the head.

When Mme de G[enlis] said, “There is spirituality even in our senses,” she spoke well, and perhaps better, or at least said more, than she thought she was saying.

One must not disparage beautiful exteriors. For they offer the natural appearances of beautiful realities.

April 12.

She herself says it (Mme de Genlis), “an impetuous storm always withers the flower it does not uproot.”

April 13.

Centuries when everyone speaks well, or aspires to speak well. — Cities where all men are ingenious.

When in conversation men are accustomed to understanding one another and explaining themselves in half a word, they grow accustomed to writing in half a word as well.

I am not fearful, I feel the cold — or — my mind feels the cold.

The pain of disputing far exceeds its usefulness. Every contention makes the mind deaf; and when one is deaf, I am mute.

April 14.

The little girl who hears music for the first time and cries out, “Ah, it is God speaking to us!” (In that bad novel by Mme de Genlis.)

April 15.

To reach the regions of light, one must pass through the clouds. Some stop there; but other minds pass beyond.

Malebranche: painted and gilded clouds.

April 17.

Vogue is to reputation what a catafalque is to a mausoleum.

April 20.

Available. A thought is perfect only when it is perfectly available, that is, when one can place it and detach it at will.

T300.The opening dash and dependent et qu’en effet remain without a governing clause.

S1.Source editor’s annotationMme de Genlis.= 1805. The Count of Corke, or Seduction without Artifice, followed by 6 short stories. Paris, Maratan. 2 vols., duodecimo.= 1806. Alphonsine, or Maternal Tenderness. Paris, Nicolle, 3 vols., duodecimo. “which proves the strength of maternal love, capable of withstanding the worst situations.” Incoherent novel. Diana de Meudon, married to the horrible Spanish bandit, the Count of Moncaldi, and confined by him in a cavern after an ambush, gives birth there to her daughter Alphonsine and raises her in this dark underground place for five or six years. A narrative crammed with adventures.

T108.The distinction between speaking better and saying more is retained. Beaunier’s bracketed expansion G[enlis] remains in both languages. His accompanying bibliography and novel summary are separate source apparatus, including their judgments and publication dates; their titles are translated here, not presented as established English publication titles. The printed Maratan is left unchanged.

T302.The printed publisher is Maratan in the enlarged facsimile; no expected publisher spelling is substituted. The two bibliographical paragraphs begin with equals signs. Publication dates remain apparatus dates, not new author dates.

T109.The storm withers the flower that it does not uproot. The English preserves the alternative injuries rather than changing the image into an assertion that every flower is uprooted. The attribution remains Joubert’s.

T303.The second ou is unaccented as printed. Both nominal formulations remain within one physical paragraph.

T110.The two repetitions of in half a word preserve à demi-mot: understanding, explaining, and writing through minimal indications or hints. The half-word image is retained rather than replaced by a claim about incomplete literacy.

T111.Feel the cold renders frilleux as susceptibility to cold, distinguished from fearfulness. Joubert’s alternative formulation transfers that bodily susceptibility to the mind. The English does not reduce it to timidity.

T112.Pain preserves peine and its contrast with usefulness. The second clause turns from the general one who is deaf to the first-person I am mute; the English leaves the switch visible. Deafness and muteness remain the source’s images for a failed exchange.

T113.The opening The little girl with its relative clauses remains a nominal fragment. The judgment bad novel and the attribution to Mme de Genlis are Joubert’s own parenthesis; the translator does not supply an unnamed book title.

T306.The opening noun phrase remains a fragment; the parenthesis identifies its context without supplying a main predicate.

T114.Some stop in the clouds; others pass beyond them toward light. The following Malebranche fragment remains a separate paragraph within the same source block, with painted and gilded both retained.

T115.A catafalque is a ceremonial funerary structure for a coffin or representation of the dead, as the Académie describes it in 1762. Its comparison with a mausoleum distinguishes vogue from reputation without reducing either to a modern measure of popularity.

T116.Available is repeated for disponible. Joubert explains it as the power to place and detach a thought at will; the translation does not replace this definition with mere accessibility to readers.