it to
the earth; but from the earth it mocks still, mocks and mocks and
mocks, with the eternal youthfulness of its wicked tongue!

Voltaire took the world as he found it. With the weapons of the
world he fought the world; with the weapons of the world he
overcame the world. The neurotic modern vulgarity which,
misinterpreting the doctrines of Nietzsche, worships force and bows
down in the dust before the great unscrupulous man, finds no
support in Voltaire. Honest people, cultivating their gardens and
keeping the prophets away from their backyards, find in the
Voltairian spirit their perpetual refuge.

The old Horatian wisdom, clear-eyed, cynical and friendly, leaps up
once again from the dust of the centuries, a clean bright flame, and
brings joyousness and sanity back to the earth.

Voltaire could be kind and generous without calling to his aid the
"immensities" and the "eternities." He could strike fiercely on behalf
of the weak and the oppressed without darkening the sunshine by
any worship of "sorrow." He could be thoroughly and most entirely
"good," while spitting forth his ribald irreverences against every
pious dogma. He could be long-suffering and considerate and
patient, to a degree hardly ever known among men of genius, while
ruling Europe with his indomitable pen.

The name of Voltaire is more than a trumpet call of liberty for the
oppressed artists and thinkers of the world; it is a challenge to the
individual Candides of our harassed generation to rise above their
own weaknesses and introspections and come forth into the sunshine.

The name of Voltaire is a living indictment of the madness of
politicians and the insanity of parties and sects. It brings us back to
the commonsense of honest men, who "care for none of these
things."

He was a queer Apollo of light and reason--this lean bewigged
figure with cane and snuffbox and laced sleeves--but the powers of
darkness fled from before his wit as they have not fled from before
the wit of any other; for the wit of Voltaire is in harmony with the
spirit of the human race, as it shakes itself free from superstition
"and all uncharitableness."

He was a materialist if you will, for his "deism" meant no more to
him than a distant blue sky giving the world space and perspective
and free air; but a materialism that renders men kind and courteous,
urbane and sweet-tempered, honest and clear-headed, is better than a
spirituality that leads to intolerance an