One of my favorite authors was Voltaire, whom I read, of course, in a translation. His "Dictionary" was contraband in prison but I read it with profit. Voltaire was certainly one of the shrewdest of men, and as up to snuff as any cynical grafter I know, and yet he had a great love for humanity. He was the philosopher of humanity. Goethe said that Luther threw the world back two hundred years, but I deny it; for Luther, like Voltaire, pointed out the ignorance and wickedness of the priests of their day. These churchmen did not understand the teachings of Christ. Was Voltaire delusional? The priests must have thought so, but they were no judges, for they were far worse and less humane than the French revolutionists. The latter killed outright, but the priests tortured in the name of the Most Humane. I never approved of the methods of the French revolutionists, but certainly they were gentle in comparison with the priests of the Spanish Inquisition.
I think that, in variety of subjects, Voltaire has no equal among writers. Shrewd as he was, he had a soul, and his moral courage was grand. His defense of young Barry, who was arrested for using language against the church, showed his kindness and breadth of mind. On his arrival in Paris, when he was only a stripling, he denounced the cowardly, fawning sycophants who surrounded Louis XIV,[B] and wrote a sarcastic poem on His Nibs, and was confined in the Bastille for two years. His courage, his wit, his sarcasms, his hatred of his persecutors, and his love and kindness, stamp him as one of the great, healthy intellects of mankind. What a clever book is _Candide_! What satire! What wit! As I lay on my cot how often I laughed at his caustic comments on humanity! And how he could hate! I never yet met a man of any account who was not a good hater. I own that Voltaire was ungallant toward the fair sex. But that was his only fault.
I enjoyed Victor Hugo because he could create a great character, and was capable of writing a story with a plot. I rank him as a master of fiction, although I preferred his experience as a traveller, to his novels, which are not real enough. Ernest Renan was a bracing and clever writer, but I was sadly disappointed in reading his _Life of Jesus_. I expected to get a true outline of Christ's time and a character sketch of the man himself, but I didn't. I went to the fountain for a glass of good wine, but got only red lemonade.