Fire. [1] After examining the different meanings of fire in the physical sense, we must examine its metaphorical meanings. Fire , especially in poetry, often means love , and it is used more elegantly in the plural than in the singular. Corneille often says a beautiful fire for a noble and virtuous love: [2] a man has fire in his conversation, this doesn’t mean that his ideas are brilliant and full of light, but rather that his expressions are vivid and animated by gestures. Similarly, ardor or fire in writing does not necessarily mean light and beauty, but rather vivacity, a multitude of figures, urgent ideas. Fire has value in speech or in written works only when it is used properly. You say that poets were animated by a divine ardor , when they were sublime; there is no genius without fire , but there can be fire even when genius is absent.

1. Voltaire was probably asked to write this article in November 1755. He asks D’Alembert a question about it on 9 December 1755 (D6619), and probably wrote the article in the course of that month. It is not known when he sent it to D’Alembert.

2. Pierre Corneille, Cinna , I.iii.275: “Remember the beauty of the flame [“le beau feu”] ignited in us;”see also La Place royale ,I.i.92; L’Illusion comique , III.i.658; Théodore , IV.iii.1259; Rodogune , I.iv.269; Nicomède , I.ii.158; Suréna , IV.ii.1154.