Candide
Chapter 1 · 1/31
Candide
Chapter 1
1Produced 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. 2For a complete list, please see the bottom of | | this document. 3| | | +------------------------------------------------------------+ * * * * * 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. 4The list is representative of the Great Moderns and is one of the most important contributions to publishing that has been made for many years. 5Every reader of books will find titles he needs at a low price in an attractive form. 6[Illustration: Voltaire.] 7CANDIDE BY VOLTAIRE INTRODUCTION BY PHILIP LITTELL BONI AND LIVERIGHT, INC. 8PUBLISHERS NEW YORK Copyright, 1918, by BONI & LIVERIGHT, INC. 9Printed 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. 10Voltaire wrote it in three days, and five or six generations have found that its laughter does not grow old. 11"Candide" has not aged. 12Yet how different the book would have looked if Voltaire had written it a hundred and fifty years later than 1759. 13It would have been, among other things, a book of sights and sounds. 14A 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. 15When 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. 16We should have had quarter distances, far horizons, the altering silhouettes of an Ionian island. 17Colored birds would have filled Paraguay with their silver or acid cries. 18Dr. 19Pangloss, to prove the existence of design in the universe, says that noses were made to carry spectacles, and so we have spectacles. 20A modern satirist would not try to paint with Voltaire's quick brush the doctrine that he wanted to expose. 21And he would choose a more complicated doctrine than Dr. 22Pangloss's optimism, would study it more closely, feel his destructive way about it with a more learned and caressing malice. 23His 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. 24Now and then he would bore us. 25"Candide" never bored anybody except William Wordsworth. 26Voltaire's men and women point his case against optimism by starting high and falling low. 27A modern could not go about it after this fashion. 28He would not plunge his people into an unfamiliar misery. 29He would just keep them in the misery they were born to. 30But such an account of Voltaire's procedure is as misleading as the plaster cast of a dance. 31Look at his procedure again. 32Mademoiselle Cunegonde, the illustrious Westphalian, sprung from a family that could prove seventy-one quarterings, descends and descends until we find her earning her keep by washing dishes in the Propontis. 33The aged faithful attendant, victim of a hundred acts of rape by negro pirates, remembers that she is the daughter of a pope, and that in honor of her approaching marriage with a Prince of Massa-Carrara all Italy wrote sonnets of which not one was passable. 34We do not need to know French literature before Voltaire in order to feel, although the lurking parody may escape us, that he is poking fun at us and at himself. 35His laughter at his own methods grows more unmistakable at the last, when he caricatures them by casually assembling six fallen monarchs in an inn at Venice. 36A modern assailant of optimism would arm himself with social pity. 37There is no social pity in "Candide." 38Voltaire, whose light touch on familiar institutions opens them and reveals their absurdity, likes to remind us that the slaughter and pillage and murder which Candide witnessed among the Bulgarians was perfectly regular, having been conducted according to the laws and usages of war. 39Had Voltaire lived to-day he would have done to poverty what he did to war. 40Pitying the poor, he would have shown us poverty as a ridiculous anachronism, and both the ridicule and the pity would have expressed his indignation. 41Almost any modern, essaying a philosophic tale, would make it long. 42"Candide" is only a "Hamlet" and a half long. 43It would hardly have been shorter if Voltaire had spent three months on it, instead of those three days. 44A conciseness to be matched in English by nobody except Pope, who can say a plagiarizing enemy "steals much, spends little, and has nothing left," a conciseness which Pope toiled and sweated for, came as easy as wit to Voltaire. 45He can afford to be witty, parenthetically, by the way, prodigally, without saving, because he knows there is more wit where that came from. 46One of Max Beerbohm's cartoons shows us the young Twentieth Century going at top speed, and watched by two of his predecessors. 47Underneath is this legend: "The Grave Misgivings of the Nineteenth Century, and the Wicked Amusement of the Eighteenth, in Watching the Progress (or whatever it is) of the Twentieth." 48This Eighteenth Century snuff-taking and malicious, is like Voltaire, who nevertheless must know, if he happens to think of it, that not yet in the Twentieth Century, not for all its speed mania, has any one come near to equalling the speed of a prose tale by Voltaire. 49"Candide" is a full book. 50It is filled with mockery, with inventiveness, with things as concrete as things to eat and coins, it has time for the neatest intellectual clickings, it is never hurried, and it moves with the most amazing rapidity. 51It has the rapidity of high spirits playing a game. 52The dry high spirits of this destroyer of optimism make most optimists look damp and depressed. 53Contemplation of the stupidity which deems happiness possible almost made Voltaire happy. 54His attack on optimism is one of the gayest books in the world. 55Gaiety has been scattered everywhere up and down its pages by Voltaire's lavish hand, by his thin fingers. 56Many propagandist satirical books have been written with "Candide" in mind, but not too many. 57To-day, especially, when new faiths are changing the structure of the world, faiths which are still plastic enough to be deformed by every disciple, each disciple for himself, and which have not yet received the final deformation known as universal acceptance, to-day "Candide" is an inspiration to every narrative satirist who hates one of these new faiths, or hates every interpretation of it but his own. 58Either hatred will serve as a motive to satire. 59That is why the present is one of the right moments to republish "Candide." 60I hope it will inspire younger men and women, the only ones who can be inspired, to have a try at Theodore, or Militarism; Jane, or Pacifism; at So-and-So, the Pragmatist or the Freudian. 61And I hope, too, that they will without trying hold their pens with an eighteenth century lightness, not inappropriate to a philosophic tale. 62In Voltaire's fingers, as Anatole France has said, the pen runs and laughs. 63PHILIP LITTELL. 64CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. 65How Candide was brought up in a Magnificent Castle, and how he was expelled thence 1 II. 66What became of Candide among the Bulgarians 5 III. 67How Candide made his escape from the Bulgarians, and what afterwards became of him 9 IV. 68How Candide found his old Master Pangloss, and what happened to them 13 V. 69Tempest, Shipwreck, Earthquake, and what became of Doctor Pangloss, Candide, and James the Anabaptist 18 VI. 70How the Portuguese made a Beautiful Auto-da-fe, to prevent any further Earthquakes: and how Candide was publicly whipped 23 VII. 71How the Old Woman took care of Candide, and how he found the Object he loved 26 VIII. 72The History of Cunegonde 30 IX. 73What became of Cunegonde, Candide, the Grand Inquisitor, and the Jew 35 X. 74In what distress Candide, Cunegonde, and the Old Woman arrived at Cadiz; and of their Embarkation 38 XI. 75History of the Old Woman 42 XII. 76The Adventures of the Old Woman continued 48 XIII. 77How Candide was forced away from his fair Cunegonde and the Old Woman 54 XIV. 78How Candide and Cacambo were received by the Jesuits of Paraguay 58 XV. 79How Candide killed the brother of his dear Cunegonde 64 XVI. 80Adventures of the Two Travellers, with Two Girls, Two Monkeys, and the Savages called Oreillons 68 XVII. 81Arrival of Candide and his Valet at El Dorado, and what they saw there 74 XVIII. 82What they saw in the Country of El Dorado 80 XIX. 83What happened to them at Surinam and how Candide got acquainted with Martin 89 XX. 84What happened at Sea to Candide and Martin 98 XXI. 85Candide and Martin, reasoning, draw near the Coast of France 102 XXII. 86What happened in France to Candide and Martin 105 XXIII. 87Candide and Martin touched upon the Coast of England, and what they saw there 122 XXIV. 88Of Paquette and Friar Giroflee 125 XXV. 89The Visit to Lord Pococurante, a Noble Venetian 133 XXVI. 90Of a Supper which Candide and Martin took with Six Strangers, and who they were 142 XXVII. 91Candide's Voyage to Constantinople 148 XXVIII. 92What happened to Candide, Cunegonde, Pangloss, Martin, etc. 93154 XXIX. 94How Candide found Cunegonde and the Old Woman again 159 XXX. 95The Conclusion 161 [Illustration: VOLTAIRE'S CANDIDE] CANDIDE
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