ctionist" were probably limited in
fact, to the departments, or the department, which he actually occupied,
and out of which he wisely did not go. He must have a satiric purpose,
and he must be allowed a very free choice of subject and seasoning. In
particular, it may be noted that he has no grasp whatever of individual
character. Even Candide is but a "humour," and Pangloss a very decided
one; as are Martin, Gordon in _L'Ingenu_, and others. His women are all
slightly varied outline-sketches of what he thought women in general
were, not persons. Plot he never attempted; and racy as his dialogue
often is, it is on the whole merely a setting for these very sparkles of
wit some of which have been quoted.

It is in these scintillations, after all, that the chief delight of his
tales consists; and though, as has been honestly confessed and shown, he
learnt this to some extent from others, he made the thing definitely his
own. When the Babylonian public has been slightly "elevated" by the
refreshments distributed at the great tournament for the hand of the
Princess Formosante, it decides that war, etc., is folly, and that the
essence of human nature is to enjoy itself, "Cette excellente morale,"
says Voltaire gravely, "n'a jamais ete dementie" (the words really
should be made to come at the foot of a page so that you might have to
turn over before coming to the conclusion of the sentence) "que par les
faits." Again, in the description of the Utopia of the Gangarides (same
story), where not only men but beasts and birds are all perfectly wise,
well conducted, and happy, a paragraph of quite sober description,
without any flinging up of heels or thrusting of tongue in cheek, ends,
"Nous avons surtout des perroquets qui prechent a merveille," and for
once Voltaire exercises on himself the Swiftian control, which he too
often neglected, and drops his beloved satire of clerics after this
gentle touch at it.[361]

He is of course not constantly at his best; but he is so often enough to
make him, as was said at the beginning, very delectable reading,
especially for the second time and later, which will be admitted to be
no common praise. When you read him for the first time his bad taste,
his obsession with certain subjects, his repetition of the same gibes,
and other things which have been duly mentioned, strike and may
disgust--will certainly more or less displease anybody but a partisan on
the same side. On a second or later re