n which he
expressed but very little esteem for the person from whom he received it.

I have never published, nor even shown, either of these two letters, not
liking to make a parade of such little triumphs; but the originals are in
my collections. 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 for me to imagine, and I was unwilling
to tarnish this delightful picture by anything which was degrading to
nature. Smitten with my two charming models, I drew my own portrait in
the lover and the friend, as much as it was possible to do it; but I made
him young and amiable, giving him, at the same time, the virtues and the
defects which I felt in myself.

That I might place my characters in a residence proper for them, I
successively passed in review the most beautiful places I had seen in my
travels. But I found no grove sufficiently deligh