Page:Works of Voltaire Volume 01.djvu/28

12 masculine sense, or exhibit equal fighting powers graced by equal perfection of literary style.

5. Because Voltaire stands as an entertainer in a class apart from others, such as Balzac, Hugo, and his country's novelists and poets. They bring us draughts from the well in their richly chased cups; Voltaire gives us the spring, out of which flows an exhaustless stream of all that makes fiction alluring, poetry beautiful, epigram memorable, common sense uncommonly forceful, and courageous truth-speaking contagious. His delicious humor and mordant sarcasm amuse, but they also inspire. There is moral purpose in every play of his merry fancy. Every stroke tells. A mere story, however charming, has its climax, and then an end, but it is next to impossible to read any page in any book of Voltaire's, be it dry history, grave philosophy, plain narrative, or what not, without some chance thought, suggestion, or happy turn of phrase darting out and fixing itself in one's mind, where it breeds a progeny of bright notions which we fondly make believe are our own.

6. Because, lastly, no private library worthy the name is complete without Voltaire. French editions are found upon the most-used book-shelves of collectors who revel in the treasures of French literature, but the present edition has the advantage, besides the prime one of being in strong, nervous English, of a methodical arrangement which will prove helpful to every reader; also it gives closer