and had banished from
his house all those gamesters, all those parasites, all those idle
flatterers, all those depraved ne'er-do-wells, and had bidden his
shop-boys give a sound beating to the officious creature who offers
to play pander.

_He._--A beating, sir, a beating! No one is beaten in any
well-governed town. It is a decent enough trade; plenty of people
with fine titles meddle with it. And what the deuce would you have
him do with his money, if he is not to have a good table, good
company, good wines, handsome women, pleasures of every colour,
diversion of every sort? I would as lief be a beggar as possess a
mighty fortune without any of these enjoyments. But go back to
Racine. He was only good for people who did not know him, and for a
time when he had ceased to exist.

_I._--Granted, but weigh the good and bad. A thousand years from
now he will draw tears, he will be the admiration of men in all the
countries of the earth; he will inspire compassion, tenderness,
pity. They will ask who he was, and to what land he belonged, and
France will be envied. He brought suffering on one or two people
who are dead, and in whom we take hardly any interest; we have
nothing to fear from his vices or his foibles. It would have been
better, no doubt, that he should have received from nature the
virtues of a good man, instead of the talents of a great one. He is
a tree which made a few other trees planted near him wither up, and
which smothered the plants that grew at his feet; but he reared his
height to the clouds, and his branches spread far; he lends his
shadow to all who came, or come now, or ever shall come, to repose
by his majestic trunk; he brought forth fruits of exquisite savour
which are renewed again and again without ceasing.

We might wish that Voltaire had the mildness of Duclos, the
ingenuousness of the Abbe Trublet, the rectitude of the Abbe
d'Olivet. But as that cannot be, let us look at the thing on the
side of it that is really interesting; let us forget for an instant
the point we occupy in space and time, and let us extend our
vision over centuries to come, and peoples yet unborn, and distant
lands yet unvisited. Let us think of the good of our race: if we
are not generous enough, at least let us forgive nature for being