Observe, for instance, the nose is formed for spectacles, therefore we wear spectacles. It is demonstrable, said he, that things cannot be otherwise than as they are for as all things have been created for some end, they must necessarily be created for the best end. He could prove to admiration that there is no effect without a cause and, that in this best of all possible worlds, the Baron's castle was the most magnificent of all castles, and My Lady the best of all possible baronesses. Master Pangloss taught the metaphysico-theologo-cosmolonigology. Pangloss, the preceptor, was the oracle of the family, and little Candide listened to his instructions with all the simplicity natural to his age and disposition. The Baron's son seemed to be a youth in every respect worthy of the father he sprung from. Her daughter was about seventeen years of age, fresh-colored, comely, plump, and desirable. My Lady Baroness, who weighed three hundred and fifty pounds, consequently was a person of no small consideration and then she did the honors of the house with a dignity that commanded universal respect. He was called My Lord by all his people, and he never told a story but everyone laughed at it. He used to hunt with his mastiffs and spaniels instead of greyhounds his groom served him for huntsman and the parson of the parish officiated as his grand almoner.

The Baron was one of the most powerful lords in Westphalia, for his castle had not only a gate, but even windows, and his great hall was hung with tapestry. The old servants of the house suspected him to have been the son of the Baron's sister, by a very good sort of a gentleman of the neighborhood, whom that young lady refused to marry, because he could produce no more than threescore and eleven quarterings in his arms the rest of the genealogical tree belonging to the family having been lost through the injuries of time. He had a solid judgment joined to the most unaffected simplicity and hence, I presume, he had his name of Candide. In the country of Westphalia, in the castle of the most noble Baron of Thunder-ten-tronckh, lived a youth whom Nature had endowed with a most sweet disposition. 978-963-527-090-3 Chapter 1 How Candide Was Brought Up in a Magnificent Castle and How He Was Driven Thence

Candide, of Het optimisme by Voltaire