Transcriber's Note:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected inthis text. For a complete list, please see the bottom ofthis document.
THE MODERN LIBRARY
OF THE WORLD'S BEST BOOKS
CANDIDE BY VOLTAIRE
The Publishers will be glad to mail complete list of titlesin the Modern Library. The list is representative of theGreat Moderns and is one of the most important contributionsto publishing that has been made for many years. Everyreader of books will find titles he needs at a low price inan attractive form.
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[Pg vii]
INTRODUCTION
Ever since 1759, when Voltaire wrote "Candide" in ridicule of the notionthat this is the best of all possible worlds, this world has been agayer place for readers. Voltaire wrote it in three days, and five orsix generations have found that its laughter does not grow old.
"Candide" has not aged. Yet how different the book would have looked ifVoltaire had written it a hundred and fifty years later than 1759. Itwould have been, among other things, a book of sights and sounds. Amodern writer would have tried to catch and fix in words some of thoseAtlantic changes which broke the Atlantic monotony of that voyage fromCadiz to Buenos Ayres. When Martin and Candide were sailing the lengthof the Mediterranean we should have had a contrast between naked scarpedBalearic cliffs and headlands of Calabria in their mists. We should havehad quarter distances, far horizons, the altering silhouettes of anIonian island. Colored birds would have filled Paraguay with theirsilver or acid cries.
Dr. Pangloss, to prove the existence of design in the universe, says[Pg viii]that noses were made to carry spectacles, and so we have spectacles. Amodern satirist would not try to paint with Voltaire's quick brush thedoctrine that he wanted to expose. And he would choose a morecomplicated doctrine than Dr. Pangloss's optimism, would study it moreclosely, feel his destructive way about it with a more learned andcaressing malice. His attack, stealthier, more flexible and more patientthan Voltaire's, would call upon us, especially when his learning got alittle out of control, to be more than patient. Now and then he wouldbore us. "Candide" never bored anybody except William Wordsworth.
Voltaire's men and women point his case against optimism by startinghigh 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 justkeep them in the misery they were born to.
But such an account of Voltaire's procedure is as misleading as theplaster cast of a dance. Look at his procedure again. MademoiselleCunégonde, the illustrious Westphalian, sprung from a family that couldprove seventy-one quarterings, descends and descends until we find herearning her keep by washing dishes in the Propontis. The aged faithfulattendant, victim of a hundred acts of rape by negro pirates, remembers[Pg ix]th