As provisional it was as no other age has been provisional, an age of assimilation and recuperation, a political pause, a gathering up of the ideas of men and the resources of science for a wider human effort. ... The ideal they sustained was the ideal of a polite and polished world in which, men of quality, that is, for no others counted would be ashamed to be cruel or gross or enthusiastic, in which the appointments of life would be spacious and elegant, and the fear of ridicule the potent auxiliary of the law in maintaining the decorum and harmonies of life. Voltaire had in him the possibil...

• Word Count: 2009
• Approx Pages: 8
• Grade Level: Graduate