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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

Mr. Hochet and Mme de Sévigné.

In Huet, On Weakness. But if we are irresistibly inclined to believe what we know?

Then one separates number from the things that have been numbered, and it subsists in the mind like a phantom, a surface from which its solid has been subtracted.

July 12.

To love men enough to be ambitious to be loved by them.

“Nothing is made from nothing.” But God’s sovereign power is not nothing. Source of matter as well as of mind.

For example, Mr. ALb. has a cheerful mind and heart. Mr. Dmzȳ has a serious mind, and his heart is not so. One must have a light mind and a serious heart, as we say.

Words that rhyme with themselves, like pourtour.

July 14.

In their writings and in their conversations, they have only one tone, that of assertion. Now, of all monotonies, that of assertion...

July 22.

The word patrie meant the paternal. Among us this word has a sound with no meaning for our ear. For us, the homeland is a moral thing. Paternal fields, native land, correspond to it; but these are two words for one. The word pays has only half its meaning. Thus this word patrie cannot arouse in us the same affections it aroused in the soul of the ancients. It does not go straight to the heart like the word patria.

[Second draft.] Patrie. Among the ancients this word meant the paternal. And for them it had a sound that went to the heart. For us it has only a mute sound, only an obscure meaning. It is a word that, being linked to no other known word, is understood only through reflection. In our present languages, this adjective turned noun names a moral thing and is consequently cold.

One is scarcely unhappy except through reflection. Consequently...

Of what trains and straightens, instead of enlightening. And Of what gives no ideas, but good feelings.

July 25.

One must concern oneself with the world’s evils and misfortunes only to relieve them. To confine oneself to contemplating and deploring them is to embitter them to no purpose. Whoever broods over them with their eyes hatches tempests from them.

July 26.

Heaven is for those who think of it.

T26.On Weakness translates only the printed de imbecillitate, without extending it to a full title in Joubert’s sentence. The final question remains hypothetical and unfinished; know is not weakened to think we know.

T243.The opening In Huet is retained; only de imbecillitate is italic. The hypothetical question is not completed with an inferred conclusion.

T27.Phantom renders larve in a spectral sense suited to the following surface deprived of its solid. The Académie’s 1798 entry records wandering spirits; the translation does not add that definition’s malignity to Joubert’s image. The solid and subtraction remain geometric images, not a claim about an insect. Number and numbered repeat the same root as in the French.

T28.The quoted nothing is repeated in the reply about God’s power. Source of matter as well as of mind remains a fragment without an inserted verb or pronoun.

T29.The printed ALb. and Dmzȳ remain unexpanded; their compressed capitalization and the mark over y are not wholly certain. Both accented à forms are read contextually as has while retained in the French. Cheerful, serious, and light keep the passage’s separate qualities of mind and heart.

T30.The French pourtour, perimeter or surroundings, is retained because the example depends on its repeated sound. No different English word has been substituted for Joubert’s example.

S1.Source editor’s annotationA notebook, dated July 14, 1806, is entitled: Huët. On the Weakness of the Human Mind; Huët, on the weakness of the human mind.” Eight pages of quotations; and this conclusion: “The whole book is a fairly good excuse for what we call Pyrrhonism. That is all.”

T31.Beaunier reports a notebook dated July 14, 1806, its title, eight pages of quotations, and Joubert’s closing judgment. The French has a closing quotation mark after the title without an opening one; the English preserves that imbalance. The Latin title and its French gloss are both translated and therefore repeat. The notebook’s date does not supply dates for nearby undated fragments.

T247.The enlarged facsimile confirms the closing guillemet after humain without a corresponding opening guillemet before Huët; this unmatched quotation mark is preserved. The quoted cahier date remains apparatus evidence, not an independently assigned date for neighboring undated entries.

T32.Patrie, pays, and Latin patria remain in their original languages where the passage examines their sound and meaning. Patrie denotes the homeland; pays can mean country. Paternal fields and native land preserve the two-word alternatives. The translation records Joubert’s account of their differing force without presenting it as a new etymological finding.

T33.The paternal deliberately retains the compressed adjective la paternelle without inserting an unprinted noun such as land. The French adjective is feminine. Moral thing distinguishes the nonmaterial conception from the bodily and emotional force Joubert attributes to the ancient word; it need not mean something morally good.

T34.[Second draft.] is Beaunier’s supplied cue within the second paragraph of the same dated entry. Both formulations remain complete and in order. Mute sound preserves son muet, while reflection and cold remain Joubert’s terms.

T35.Trains and straightens retain the related dresse and redresse rather than reducing both to teaching. Enlightening remains a different activity. The repeated Of constructions are fragments, including the capitalized Of after And.

T36.Broods over them with their eyes and hatches tempests from them preserve the linked couve and éclore. Embitter renders aigrir, retaining the effect of fruitless contemplation on the evils and misfortunes themselves. Relief remains the stated purpose of attending to them.