CANDIDE
BY VOLTAIRE

INTRODUCTION

Ever since 1759, when Voltaire wrote "Candide" in ridicule of the notion
that this is the best of all possible worlds, this world has been a
gayer place for readers. Voltaire wrote it in three days, and five or
six generations have found that its laughter does not grow old.

"Candide" has not aged. Yet how different the book would have looked if
Voltaire had written it a hundred and fifty years later than 1759. It
would have been, among other things, a book of sights and sounds. A
modern writer would have tried to catch and fix in words some of those
Atlantic changes which broke the Atlantic monotony of that voyage from
Cadiz to Buenos Ayres. When Martin and Candide were sailing the length
of the Mediterranean we should have had a contrast between naked scarped
Balearic cliffs and headlands of Calabria in their mists. We should have
had quarter distances, far horizons, the altering silhouettes of an
Ionian island. Colored birds would have filled Paraguay with their
silver or acid cries.

Dr. Pangloss, to prove the existence of design in the universe, says
that noses were made to carry spectacles, and so we have spectacles. A
modern satirist would not try to paint with Voltaire's quick brush the
doctrine that he wanted to expose. And he would choose a more
complicated doctrine than Dr. Pangloss's optimism, would study it more
closely, feel his destructive way about it with a more learned and
caressing malice. His attack, stealthier, more flexible and more patient
than Voltaire's, would call upon us, especially when his learning got a
little out of control, to be more than patient. Now and then he would
bore us. "Candide" never bored anybody except William Wordsworth....