Works Author:Voltaire Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CANDIDE; OR, THE OPTIMIST. [To fully appreciate "Candide," the most exquisite piece of philosophical banter ever penned, it should be remembered that Rousseau... more » and Pope had been preaching the creed that "whatever is, is right," in this "best of all possible worlds." The terrible earthquake at Lisbon thundered a scathing commentary on this comfortable gospel. Voltaire gave it noble expression in his poem on that calamity, which should be read before "Candide" is enjoyed. The dignified eloquence and force of the poem moved Rousseau to attempt a reply in an ingenious letter upholding the doctrine so shaken in its base. Disdaining a serious rejoinder Voltaire retorted in this, the drollest of profoundly philosophic queer stories, which throws a merciless search-light on the flimsier optimism of the period, and stands as a perfect example of literary style, razing a Babel tower by the wave of a feather.] fifllv CANDIDE; OR, THE OPTIMIST. CHAPTER I. HOW CANDIDE WAS BROUGHT UP IN A MAGNIFICENT CASTLE AND HOW HE WAS DRIVEN THENCE. In The country of Westphalia, in the castle of the most noble baron of Thunder-ten-tronckh, lived a youth whom nature had endowed with a most sweet disposition. His face was the true index of his mind. He had a solid judgment joined to the most unaffected simplicity; and nence,' Ip7esume, he had his name of Candide. The old servants of the house suspected him to have been the son of the baron's sister, by a very good sort of a gentleman of the neighborhood, whom that young lady refused to marry, because he could produce no more than threescore and eleven quarterings in his arms; the rest of the genealogical tree belonging to the family having been lost through the injuries of time. The baron was one of the most powerful lords in Westphalia; f...« less