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They called him “My Lord,” and laughed at all his stories.
The Baron’s lady weighed about three hundred and fifty pounds, and was therefore a person of great consideration,
they who assert that all is well have said a foolish thing, they should have said all is for the best.
saw between the bushes, Dr. Pangloss giving a lesson in experimental natural philosophy to her mother’s chamber-maid, a little brown wench, very pretty and very docile.
Cause zero
Candide, all stupefied, could not yet very well realise how he was a hero.
The absurdity of the fiasco
Futility of war. Candide, is it still the best of all worlds?
unfeathered biped
Absurditty
and having said all that it became him to say, inquired into the cause and effect, as well as into the sufficient reason that had reduced Pangloss to so miserable a plight.
“Alas!” said the other, “it was love; love, the comfort of the human species, the preserver of the universe, the soul of all sensible beings, love, tender love.” “Alas!” said Candide, “I know this love, that sovereign of hearts, that soul of our souls; yet it never cost me more than a kiss and twenty kicks on the backside. How could this beautiful cause produce in you an effect so abominable?”
Pangloss made answer in these terms: “Oh, my dear Candide, you remember Paquette, that pretty wench who waited on our noble Baroness; in her arms I tasted the delights of paradise, which produced in me those hell torments with which you see me devoured; she was infected with them, she is perhaps dead of them. This present Paquette received of a learned Grey Friar, who had traced it to its source; he had had it of an old countess, who had received it from a cavalry captain, who owed it to a marchioness, who took it from a page, who had received it from a Jesuit, who when a novice had it in a
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contaminates the source of life, frequently even hinders generation, and which is evidently opposed to the great end of nature, we should...
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Pangloss explained to him how everything was so constituted that it could not be better. James was not of this opinion. “It is more likely,” said he, “mankind have a little corrupted nature, for they were not born wolves, and they have become wolves; God has given them neither cannon of four-and-twenty pounders, nor bayonets; and yet they have made cannon and bayonets to destroy one another. Into this account I might throw not only bankrupts, but Justice which seizes on the effects of bankrupts to cheat the creditors.”
rose above the water one moment and was then swallowed up for ever. He was just going to jump after him, but was prevented by the philosopher Pangloss, who demonstrated to him that the Bay of Lisbon had been made on purpose for the Anabaptist to be drowned.
“What can be the sufficient reason of this phenomenon?” said Pangloss. “This is the Last Day!”
“This concussion of the earth
“Nothing more probable,” said Candide; “but for the love of God a little oil and wine.” “How, probable?” replied the philosopher. “I maintain that the point is capable of being demonstrated.
succoured,
but Pangloss consoled them, assuring them that things could not be otherwise. “For,” said he, “all that is is for the best. If there is a volcano at Lisbon it cannot be elsewhere. It is impossible that things should be other than they are; for everything is right.
incommoded
Candide, terrified, amazed, desperate, all bloody, all palpitating, said to himself: “If this is the best of possible worlds, what then are the others? Well, if I had been only whipped I could put up with it, for I experienced that among the Bulgarians; but oh, my dear Pangloss! thou greatest of philosophers, that I should have seen you hanged, without knowing for what! Oh, my dear Anabaptist, thou best of men, that thou should’st have been drowned in the very harbour! Oh, Miss Cunegonde, thou pearl of girls! that thou should’st have had thy belly ripped open!
avowed
tractable,
Quarrels have not been wanting, for they could not decide whether the night from Saturday to Sunday belonged to the old law or to the new. For my part, I have so far held out against both, and I verily believe that this is the reason why I am still beloved.
Women as property
This Issachar was the most choleric Hebrew that had ever been seen in Israel since the Captivity in Babylon. “What!” said he, “thou bitch of a Galilean, was not the Inquisitor enough for thee? Must this rascal also share with me?”
“Had not Pangloss been hanged,” said Candide, “he would give us good counsel in this emergency, for he was a profound philosopher. Failing him let us consult the old woman.”
At this moment, the following is what passed in the soul of Candide, and how he reasoned: If this holy man call in assistance, he will surely have me burnt; and Cunegonde will perhaps be served in the same manner; he was the cause of my being cruelly whipped; he is my rival; and, as I have now begun to kill, I will kill away, for there is no time to hesitate. This reasoning was clear and instantaneous; so that without giving time to the Inquisitor to recover from his surprise, he pierced him through and through, and cast him beside the Jew.
“My beautiful young lady,” responded Candide, “when one is a lover, jealous and whipped by the Inquisition, one stops at nothing.”
While they were journeying, the Holy Brotherhood entered the house; my lord the Inquisitor was interred in a handsome church, and Issachar’s body was thrown upon a dunghill.
The ways of world
“Alas!” said Candide, “dear Pangloss has often demonstrated to me that the goods of this world are common to all men, and that each has an equal right to them. But according to these principles the Grey Friar ought to have left us enough to carry us through our journey. Have you nothing at all left, my dear Cunegonde?” “Not a farthing,” said she.
intrepid
“We are going into another world,” said Candide; “and surely it must be there that all is for the best. For I must confess there is reason to complain a little of what passeth in our world in regard to both natural and moral philosophy.
and all Italy composed sonnets in my praise, though not one of them was passable.
bagatelle.
scarcely
Our men defended themselves like the Pope’s soldiers; they flung themselves upon their knees, and threw down their arms, begging of the corsair an absolution in articulo mortis.
Release by death
Such scenes as this were transacted through an extent of three hundred leagues—and yet they never missed the five prayers a day ordained by Mahomet.
yet more swooning than repose.
‘O che sciagura d’essere senza coglioni!
This and cunegondes story. Two women. What is the meaning of this.
The following posthumous note of Voltaire’s was first added to M. Beuchot’s edition of his works issued in 1829; “See the extreme discretion of the author; there has not been up to the present any Pope named Urban X.; he feared to give a bastard to a known Pope. What circumspection! What delicacy of conscience!
“‘It is I, indeed; but my mother lies four hundred yards hence, torn in quarters, under a heap of dead bodies.’
“I thanked him with tears of commiseration; and instead of taking me to Italy he conducted me to Algiers, where he sold me to the Dey.
soon as the first fury of this terrible pestilence was over, a sale was made of the Dey’s slaves;
The women as property narrative
“We had a very pious and humane Iman, who preached an excellent sermon, exhorting them not to kill us all at once. “‘Only cut off a buttock of each of those ladies,’ said he, ‘and you’ll fare extremely well; if you must go to it again, there will be the same entertainment a few days hence; heaven will accept of so charitable an action, and send you relief.’
The Hague, at Rotterdam. I waxed old in misery and disgrace, having only one-half of my posteriors, and always remembering I was a Pope’s daughter. A hundred times I was upon the point of killing myself; but still I loved life. This ridiculous foible is perhaps one of our most fatal characteristics; for is there anything more absurd than to wish to carry continually a burden which one can always throw down? to detest existence and yet to cling to one’s existence? in brief, to caress the serpent which devours us, till he has eaten our very heart?
I have taken notice of a vast number of people who held their own existence in abhorrence, and yet I never knew of more than eight who voluntarily put an end to their misery;
I advise you to divert yourself, and prevail upon each passenger to tell his story; and if there be one of them all, that has not cursed his life many a time, that has not frequently looked upon himself as the unhappiest of mortals, I give you leave to throw me headforemost into the sea.”
“It is a great pity,” said Candide, “that the sage Pangloss was hanged contrary to custom at an auto-da-fé; he would tell us most amazing things in regard to the physical and moral evils that overspread earth and sea, and I should be able, with due respect, to make a few objections.” While each passenger was recounting
deign
