From the book
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II
Joseph Joubert · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordGlass and crystal give perceptible form to transparency, apparent depth, and the doubling of an object through resemblance.
- In JoubertThe glass pane lets a bird see a fly it cannot reach, separating visual access from physical passage.
- In this editionThe English translation retains “glass,” “crystal,” and the reciprocal order of the water comparison.
- A place to beginGlass separates seeing from bodily access.
- English renderings
- glass; crystal
Meaning
Glass and crystal give perceptible form to transparency, apparent depth, and the doubling of an object through resemblance.
Use in the book
The glass pane lets a bird see a fly it cannot reach, separating visual access from physical passage. A pearl can lack luster yet have a beautiful transparency, compared separately with that of glass. Water resembling crystal and crystal resembling water each offer two objects at once. This is the pleasure of reciprocal appearance: the material does not literally change into the other merely because it evokes it.
Places to read
- II, p. 880–881, entry 4, ¶1Glass separates seeing from bodily access.
- II, p. 616, entry 6, ¶1Glass and pearl suggest distinct kinds of transparency.
- II, p. 660, entry 4, ¶1Crystal and water double their appearances through resemblance.
Translation in this edition
The English translation retains “glass,” “crystal,” and the reciprocal order of the water comparison. No mineral species or manufacturing process is inferred from cristal in this short image.
Source note
Beaunier 1938, II, pp. 616, 660, 880, 881.