ly--poems, essays,
plays--and fired pamphlets at a world of fools.

All that he wrote during the day he read to Madame at night. One of her
maids has given us a vivid little picture of how Voltaire, at exactly
eleven o'clock each night, would come out of hiding, and entering the
Madame's room, would partake of the dainty supper that was always
prepared for him. The divine Emilie had the French habit of receiving
her visitors in bed, and as her hours were much more regular than
Voltaire's, she usually enjoyed a nap before he entered. After his
supper he would read aloud to her all he had written since they last
met. If the piece was dramatic he would act it out with roll of r's,
striding walk, grimace and gesticulations gracefully done, for the man
was an actor of rare talent.

Emerson says, "Let a man do a thing incomparably well, and the world
will make a path to his door, though he live in a forest." There was no
lack of society at Civey--the writers, poets and philosophers found
their way there. Voltaire fitted up a little private theater, where his
plays were given, and concerts and lectures held from time to time.

The divine Emilie's forte was science and mathematics--and on these
themes she wrote much, competing for prizes and winning the recognition
of various learned societies. It will be seen that the man and the woman
were not in competition with each other, which, perhaps, accounts, in
degree, for their firm friendship.

Yet they did quarrel, too, as true lovers will, I am told. But their
quarreling was all done in English, so the servants and His Inertia, the
Marquis, did not know the purpose of it. It is probable that the
accounts of their misunderstandings are considerably exaggerated, as the
rehearsal of a tragedy by this pair of histrions would be taken by the
servants for a sure-enough fight.

And they were always acting--often beginning breakfast with a "stunt."
The Madame sang well, and her little impromptu arias pleased her thin
little lover immensely and he would improvise and answer in kind, and
then take the part of an audience and applaud, calling loudly, "Bravo!
Bravo!"

Mornings they would ride horseback through the winding woods, or else
hunt for geological and botanical specimens. About all of Voltaire's
science he got from the lady and this was true of languages as well.

To a nervous, irritable and intense thinker a certain amount of solitude
seems necessary. Voltaire occasionally