Rabelais is the philosopher's Bible and his book of outrageous jests.
He is the recondite cult of wise and magnanimous spirits. He
reconciles Nature with Art, Man with God, and religious piety with
shameless enjoyment. His style restores to us our courage and our joy;
and his noble buffoonery gives us back the sweet wantonness of our
youth. Rabelais is the greatest intellect in literature. No one has
ever had a humor so large; an imagination so creative, or a spirit so
world-swallowing, so humane, so friendly.



8. CANDIDE. _Any French edition or English translation_.

Voltaire was a true man of action, a knight of the Holy Ghost. He
plunged fiercely into the human arena, and fought through a laborious
life, against obscurantism, stupidity and tyranny. He had a clear-cut,
aristocratic mind. He hated mystical balderdash, clumsy barbarity, and
stupid hypocrisy. Candide is not only a complete refutation of
optimism; it is a book full of that mischievous humor, which has the
power, more than anything else, of reconciling us to the business of
enduring life.


9. SHAKESPEARE. _In the Temple edition_.

It is time Shakespeare was read for the beauty of his poetry, and
enjoyed without pedantry and with some imagination. The less usual and
more cynical of his plays, such as Troilus, and Cressida, Measure for
Measure and Timon of Athens, will be found to contain some very