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Candide, by Voltaire
Candide, by Voltaire The Project Gutenberg EBook of Candide, by Voltaire This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Candide Author: Voltaire Commentator: Philip Littell Release Date: November 27, 2006 [EBook #19942] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CANDIDE *** Produced by Chuck Greif, Fox in the Stars and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net * * * * * +------------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note: | | | | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected in | | this text. For a complete list, please see the bottom of | | this document. | | | +------------------------------------------------------------+ *****
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Candide, by Voltaire THE MODERN LIBRARY OF THE WORLD'S BEST BOOKS CANDIDE BY VOLTAIRE The Publishers will be glad to mail complete list of titles in the Modern Library. The list is representative of the Great Moderns and is one of the most important contributions to publishing that has been made for many years. Every reader of books will find titles he needs at a low price in an attractive form. [Illustration: Voltaire.] CANDIDE BY VOLTAIRE INTRODUCTION BY PHILIP LITTELL BONI AND LIVERIGHT, INC. PUBLISHERS NEW YORK Copyright, 1918, by BONI & LIVERIGHT, INC. Printed in the United States of America INTRODUCTION Ever since 1759, when Voltaire wrote "Candide" in ridicule of the notion that this is the best of all possible worlds, this world has been a gayer place for readers. Voltaire wrote it in three days, and five or six generations have found that its laughter does not grow old. "Candide" has not aged. Yet how different the book would have looked if Voltaire had written it a hundred and fifty years later than 1759. It would have been, among other things, a book of sights and sounds. A modern writer would have tried to catch and fix in words some of those Atlantic changes which broke the Atlantic monotony of that voyage from Cadiz to Buenos Ayres. When Martin and Candide were sailing the length of the Mediterranean we should have had a contrast between naked scarped Balearic cliffs and headlands of Calabria in their mists. We should have had quarter distances, far horizons, the altering silhouettes of an Ionian island. Colored birds would have filled Paraguay with their silver or acid cries. Dr. Pangloss, to prove the existence of design in the universe, says that noses were made to carry spectacles, and so we have spectacles. A modern satirist would not try to paint with Voltaire's quick brush the doctrine that he wanted to expose. And he would choose a more complicated doctrine than Dr. Pangloss's optimism, would study it more closely, feel his destructive way about it with a more learned and caressing malice. His attack, stealthier, more flexible and more patient than Voltaire's, would call upon us, especially when his learning got a little out of control, to be more than patient. Now and then he would bore us. "Candide" never bored anybody except William Wordsworth. Voltaire's men and women point his case against optimism by starting high and falling low. A modern could not go about it after this fashion. He would not plunge his people into an unfamiliar misery. He would just keep them in the misery they were born to.
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Candide, by Voltaire
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But such an account of Voltaire's procedure is as misleading as the plaster cast of a dance. Look at his procedure again. Mademoiselle Cunégonde, the illustrious Westphalian, sprung from a family that could prove seventy-one quarterings, descends and descends until we find her earning her kee