Since that time Voltaire has published the answer he promised me, but which I never received.

This is the novel of 'Candide', of which I cannot speak because I have not read it.
All these interruptions ought to have cured me of my fantastic amours, and they were perhaps the means offered me by Heaven to prevent their destructive consequences; but my evil genius prevailed, and I had scarcely begun to go out before my heart, my head, and my feet returned to the same paths.

I say the same in certain respects; for my ideas, rather less exalted, remained this time upon earth, but yet were busied in making so exquisite a choice of all that was to be found there amiable of every kind, that it was not much less chimerical than the imaginary world I had abandoned.
I figured to myself love and friendship, the two idols of my heart, under the most ravishing images.

I amused myself in adorning them with all the charms of the sex I had always adored.

I imagined two female friends rather than two of my own sex, because, although the example be more rare, it is also more amiable.