Since that time Voltaire has published the
answer he promised me, but which I never received. This is the novel
of Candide, of which I cannot speak because I have not read it.
All these interruptions ought to have cured me of my fantastic
amours, and they were perhaps the means offered me by Heaven to
prevent their destructive consequences; but my evil genius
prevailed, and I had scarcely begun to go out before my heart, my
head, and my feet returned to the same paths. I say the same in
certain respects; for my ideas, rather less exalted, remained this
time upon earth, but yet were busied in making so exquisite a choice
of all that was to be found there amiable of every kind, that it was
not much less chimerical than the imaginary world I had abandoned.
I figured to myself love and friendship, the two idols of my
heart, under the most ravishing images. I amused myself in adorning
them with all the charms of the sex I had always adored. I imagined
two female friends rather than two of my own sex, because, although
the example be more rare, it is also more amiable. I endowed them with
different characters, but analogous to their connection, with two
faces, not perfectly beautiful, but according to my taste, and
animated with benevolence and sensibility. I made one brown and the
other fair, one lively and the other languishing, one wise and the
other weak, but of so amiable a weakness that it seemed to add a charm
to virtue. I gave to one of the two a lover, of whom the other was the
tender friend, and even something more, but I did not admit either
rivalry, quarrels, or jealousy: because every painful sentiment is
painful to me to imagine, and I was unwilling to tarnish this
delightful picture by anything which was degrading to nature.
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