From his youth upwards, Voltaire's wishes and endeavours had been directed to an active and social life, to politics, to gain on a large scale, to a connection with the heads of the earth, and a profitable use of this connection, that he himself might be one of the heads of the earth also. No one has easily made himself so dependent for the sake of being independent. He even succeeded in subjugating minds: the nation became his own. In vain did his opponents unfold their moderate talents and their monstrous hate: nothing succeeded in injuring him. The court he could never reconcile to himself; but, by way of compensation, foreign kings were his tributaries; Catharine, and Frederick the Great, Gustavus of Sweden, Christian of Denmark, Peniotowsky of Poland, Henry of Prussia, Charles of Brunswick, acknowledged themselves his vassals; even popes thought they must coax him by some acts of indulgence. That Joseph the Second had kept aloof from him did not at all redound to the honour of this prince; for it would have done no harm to him and his undertakings, if, with such a fine intellect and with such noble views, he had been somewhat more practically clever,[1] and a better appreciator of the mind.
What I have stated here in a compressed form, and in some connection, sounded at that time as a cry of the moment, as a perpetual discord, unconnected and uninstructive in our ears. Nothing was heard but the praise of those who had gone before. Something good and new was required, but the newest was never liked. Scarcely had a patriot exhibited on the long inanimate stage national-French, heart-inspiring subjects, scarcely had the "Siege of Calais" gained enthusiastic applause, than the piece, together with all its national comrades, was considered empty, and in every sense objectionable.
- ↑ "Practically clever" is put as a kind of equivalent for the difficult word "geist reich."—Trans.
