Reflection

Use in the book

The early contrast between the reflecting head and the remembering body assigns a dancer’s feet and a musician’s fingers their own faculty of recollection. This is Joubert’s speculative account, not modern physiological evidence. Reflection also belongs to the pleasure of reading: Virgil is praised for satisfying reflection as much as taste, with remembered verses as delicious as their reading. In the writing fragment, reflection and good taste explain the acquired difficulty that must accompany natural facility. Difficulty here is a cultivated restraint or discrimination, not merely inability to write.

Places to read

1. I, p. 43, entry 1, ¶1Reflection is distinguished from bodily remembering.
2. II, p. 655, entry 3, ¶1Poetry can satisfy reflection and taste together.
3. II, p. 755, entry 2, ¶1Reflection helps make artistic difficulty a complement to natural facility.

Translation in this edition

The English translation preserves reflection rather than substituting meditation. The I.43 fragments are undated and placed by Beaunier with acknowledged conjecture. Bracketed difficulty on II.755 marks contextual English renderings of damaged French words, not secure recovered letters.