which in his instance continue very great. "Voltaire was the
spiritual complement of Friedrich," says Sauerteig once: "what
little of lasting their poor Century produced lies mainly in these
Two. A very somnambulating Century! But what little it DID, we
must call Friedrich; what little it THOUGHT, Voltaire. Other fruit
we have not from it to speak of, at this day. Voltaire, and what
CAN be faithfully done on the Voltaire Creed; 'Realized
Voltairism;'--admit it, reader, not in a too triumphant humor,--is
not that pretty much the net historical product of the Eighteenth
Century? The rest of its history either pure somnambulism; or a
mere Controversy, to the effect, 'Realized Voltairism? How soon
shall it be realized, then? Not at once, surely!' So that
Friedrich and Voltaire are related, not by accident only.
They are, they for want of better, the two Original Men of their
Century; the chief and in a sense the sole products of their
Century. They alone remain to us as still living results from it,
--such as they are. And the rest, truly, OUGHT to depart and
vanish (as they are now doing); being mere ephemera; contemporary
eaters, scramblers for provender, talkers of acceptable hearsay;
and related merely to the butteries and wiggeries of their time,
and not related to the Perennialities at all, as these Two were."
--With more of the like sort from Sauerteig.

M. de Voltaire, who used to be M. Francois-Marie Arouet, was at
this time about forty, [Born 20th February, 1694; the younger of
two sons: Father, "Francois Arouet, a Notary of the Chatelet,
ultimately Treasurer of the Chamber of Accounts;" Mother,
"Marguerite d'Aumart, of a noble family of Poitou."] and had gone
through various fortunes; a man, now and henceforth, in a high
degree conspicuous, and questionable to his fellow-creatures.