title: Voltaire Almighty: A Life in Pursuit of Freedom
author:  Roger Pearson 
description: This new biography's title seems to deify one of the leaders of the French Enlightenment, whose writings espoused reason and the dignity of man. But while Pearson, a professor of French at Oxford, speaks loftily of Voltaire (16941778) as a hero, his book offers a grounded portrait of his long and often troubled life. Born Franois-Marie Arouet, he was imprisoned early on for his heretical writings and was exiled from Paris for 25 years. His work wasn't truly respected until he was past 80 and near death; it was then that statues of him were erected and he became godlike. Voltaire's plays caused a furor because they satirized the Catholic Church and the royal family, against whose repressive rule Voltaire revolted in his writings and through his financial support of victims of the repression. His business fortune also went to the two women in his life, the Marquise du Chtelet, a mathematician and his longtime mistress, and his niece (and also his mistress), Marie-Louise Denis. Yet the author of <i>Candide </i>and major works of philosophy seems to have had less interest in the physicality of love than in the emotion, and this book illuminates the man as he struggled to support freedom in a repressive world. <i>(Nov.)</i> <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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  * * *
  
  # Captain Brassbound's Conversion
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### George Bernard Shaw
  
  
  This page copyright © 2001 Munsey's.
  
  
  http://www.munseys.com
  
  ACT I
  
  
  ACT II
  
  
  ACT III
  
  
  NOTES TO CAPTAIN BRASSBOUND'S CONVERSION
  
  
  ENGLISH AND AMERICAN DIALECTS
  
  
  
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### ACT I
  
  
  
  
  
    
  On the heights overlooking the harbor of Mogador, a seaport on the
  
  
  west coast of Morocco, the missionary, in the coolness of the late
  
  
  afternoon, is following the precept of Voltaire by cultivating his
  
  
  garden. He is an elderly Scotchman, spiritually a little
  
  
  weatherbeaten, as having to navigate his creed in strange waters
  
  
  crowded with other craft but still a convinced son of the Free Church
  
  
  and the North African Mission, with a faithful brown eye, and a
  
  
  peaceful soul. Physically a wiry small-knit man, well tanned, clean
  
  
  shaven, with delicate resolute features and a twinkle of mild humor.
  
  
  He wears the sun helmet and pagri, the neutral-tinted spectacles