ABSTRACT
The reduction of the vast and often contradictory information about Voltaire’s life to a reasonably concise narrative is a task whose difficulties can only be appreciated by those who have attempted it. To deal adequately with h’s works is an even more complicated and formidable undertaking. In the one case we are wrestling only with flesh and blood ; in the other we have to attack more gigantic and shadowy powers. The mind of Voltaire overwhelms us with its energy and mobility. How are we to bind this Proteus and force him to tell us his secrets ? There are twenty aspects of Voltaire, any one of which would provide a specialist with material for a volume. His fertility alone is a problem of great interest. Other writers grow exhausted, need repose, degenerate into mediocrity or imbecility ; Voltaire was apparently inexhaustible and unable to rest, urged on by some mysterious force ; much of his best work was composed between fifty and eighty. The study of science and philosophy did not cramp his creative force ; even more remarkably, his devotion to a narrow standard of taste could not quench his powers of production. He derived from the Jesuits an exaggerated respect for the 134medium of verse, but, though he wrote thousands of lines of verse, his prose remained unaffected—pure, sober, clear, sparkling. Respect for a factitious ideal of tragedy did not prevent him from writing delicious occasional verse and an amusing burlesque epic. Indeed, his mind was so mobile that, as we have already seen, he worked simultaneously upon five or six different books in as many different genres. Few writers, therefore, have attained to Voltaire’s self-discipline ; few can have possessed so exact a knowledge of their powers ; few have directed their talents with such precision and mastery.
