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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

Mr. Hochet and Mme de Sévigné.

June 8.

(At Notre Dame.) Gold has something divine about it.

Saturday, June 7.

(Journal de l’Empire of the same day. Feuilleton: commentary on Corneille, signed Z.) “One must know how to admit (Voltaire said) that it is an art that lacks art. Very well (Mr. Delalot says politely); but one must know how to admit that Ronsard and Chapelain never wrote a line in jargon as barbarous as the jargon of this prose.” Mr. Delalot cries out in protest. He would like more harmony in this sentence. He finds barbarous jargon in it. The same critic says at the end of his article: “The daily analysis of his plays proves that this maxim” (strike hard rather than strike true) “has been the foundation of his theater as of his criticism; and (he adds) that is enough for his admirers, if they wish to open their eyes, to judge the excellence of the one and the soundness of the other.” Observe closely (and in such a critic) the perfection of this grammatical gibberish.

June 8.

J.-B. Rousseau. His talent fills the interval between Lamotte and the true poet.

Boileau, Racine, etc. These are not waters from a spring. Their merit lies in a beautiful choice in imitation. And it is their books that imitate books, not their souls that imitate souls.

There are pedants of the collège, there are pedants of the lycée.

June 9.

— and, to express such excellent thoughts well, one need not have made oneself a beautiful style: it is enough to have none.

June 4.

To write with beauty or with charm. With beauty in great things and with charm in small ones. In middling things, one must write in a middling way.

Whoever always writes without charm has no beauty in his mind.

June 9.

All clear or transparent words seem to be beautiful sounds.

Yes and no are not precisely clear words, but decided words. In clear words there is more light than movement or posture. Yes and no are what the Latins called words full of gesture.

June 12.

This man (La Harpe) was accustomed only to judging words. One sees that he is out of his element when it comes to things. He falters there and, however good a face he puts on it, one feels that he is not on his own ground. Thus he tries quickly to catch hold of some passage in a book.

There are opinions that repel us so much, and for which our mind feels such aversion, that it cannot even bring itself to touch them in order to refute them.

June 14.

[…]es: One sees that this one too has occupied himself only with books. One feels that what he thinks and what he says rests only on paper. He lacks the solidity of things. He sets nothing on this foundation. He builds nothing on this rock. Thus all his assertions totter, swaying castles. Having seen nothing with the naked eye and from nature, etc.

This bookish style — which smells of authors and not of the world. I mean the real world: life, experience, and the substance of things.

June 17.

— whose brain has nothing mechanical about it.

T182.The opening quotation includes the words attributed to Voltaire and Delalot’s response. The later quotation is interrupted by Joubert’s parenthetical maxim. The repeated art, jargon, and one and the other remain; the translator does not repair the grammar Joubert mocks or substitute names for its pronouns. The perfection of the closing phrase is ironic in this context.

T183.Of the same day refers to the printed Saturday, June 7 heading, which follows an entry dated June 8. Feuilleton identifies the newspaper’s literary column. Signed Z is retained as printed; the identification with Delalot is made by Joubert in the body, not newly established by the translator.

S1.Source editor’s annotationThe text reads R—c—n. Is it Racine or Racan that Joubert meant?...

T184.The waters from a spring, books imitating books, and souls imitating souls remain distinct images. Beaunier prints Racine but records R—c—n and asks whether Racine or Racan was meant. His unresolved question remains separate in the source apparatus; the main text has not been silently changed to Racan.

T346.The editor leaves Racine versus Racan unresolved. The enlarged facsimile confirms the terminal question mark followed by three dots; neither suggested name is substituted for the main printed Racine.

T185.Collège and lycée retain the French institutional terms. Historical Académie definitions describe the first as a place teaching letters, sciences, and languages, and the second more broadly as a place devoted to instruction. No particular institution is named here; collège has not been assigned the modern American meaning of a university.

T186.Middling things and in a middling way retain the related words médiocres and médiocrité within the scale of great and small subjects. The translation does not turn this into an explicit instruction to write badly. The printed June 4 follows June 9, and the second paragraph continues on the next page without a new source separator.

T348.The Latin phrase is retained without being silently attributed to a particular ancient author. Both occurrences of Oui and non in paragraph 2 are italic.

T187.Words full of gesture translates gestuosa verba. The phrase follows movement and posture, distinct from the light of clear words. Joubert attributes it only to the Latins; no particular ancient author has been established for this wording.

T188.Out of his element, falters, ground, and catch hold preserve the connected physical image in the description of La Harpe. Words and things remain distinct throughout; the English does not replace things with a newly specified subject.

S1.Source editor’s annotationProbably Félès.

T189.Only the suffix es is secure at the damaged beginning. It remains attached to the loss marker in English. Beaunier’s Probably Félès is a separate, tentative source annotation; the uncertain name is not supplied in the main text. The final Having seen fragment also remains unfinished.

T349.The damaged opening preserves only the secure suffix es; the preceding mark is not restored from the editor’s tentative name. Baze and nud retain the print. The final participial sentence in paragraph 1 has no supplied subject or governing verb.

T190.Smells of retains the sensory image of sent. The world is immediately defined as life, experience, and the substance of things, rather than being silently restricted to fashionable society.