“‘Pardieu! what I sought.’ “‘Gold?’ “‘Gold, indeed! I am surprised at you!’ “‘The diamond?’ “‘Gold? diamonds? The man raves! A fine discovery, forsooth, to be rejoiced at!’ “‘Then what you have found is your elixir?’ “‘Yes, my son, yes!—the elixir of life! Life?—what do I say?—the eternity of life!’ “‘Oh!’ said Balsamo in a dejected voice (for he looked on this pursuit as mere insanity), ‘so it is that dream which occupies you still?’ “But Althotas, without listening, continued to gaze delightedly at his phial. “‘At last,’ said he, ‘the combination is complete: the elixir of Aristæus, twenty grains; balm of mercury, fifteen grains; precipitate of gold, fifteen grains; essence of the cedar of Lebanon, twenty-five grains.’ “‘But it seems to me that, with the exception of the elixir of Aristæus, this is precisely your last combination, master?’ “‘Yes, but I had not then discovered one more ingredient, without which all the rest are as nothing.’ “‘And have you discovered it now?’ “‘Yes.’ “‘Can you procure it?’ “‘I should think so!’ “‘What is it?’ “‘We must add to the several ingredients already combined in this phial, the three last drops of the life-blood of an infant.’ “‘Well, but where will you procure this infant?’ said Balsamo horror-struck. “‘I trust to you for that.’ “‘To me? You are mad, master!’ “‘Mad? And why?’ asked the old man, perfectly unmoved at this charge, and licking with the utmost delight a drop of the fluid which had escaped from the cork of the phial and was trickling down the side. “‘Why, for that purpose you must kill the child.’ “‘Of course we must kill him; and the handsomer he is the better.’” But in the end the old man falls a victim to his own infatuation, and at length dies incontinently without discovering the long-looked-for arcana. CHAPTER IX. READE. An excellent picture of a physician of the fifteenth century is drawn by that master in the art of fiction, Charles Reade, in his work _The Cloister and the Hearth_, a story of much historic interest and beauty. The hero, Gerard, wounded in an encounter with a bear, lies sick at Düsseldorf, and is visited by a physician. “It was an imposing figure that entered the sick room; an old gentleman in a long sober gown trimmed with rich fur, cherry-coloured hose, and pointed shoes, with a sword by his side in a morocco scabbard, a ruff round his neck, not only starched severely, but treacherously stiffened in furrows by rebatoes, or a little hidden framework of wood; and on his head a four-cornered cap with a fur border; on his chin and bosom, a majestic white beard. This was the full dress of a physician. A boy followed at his heels with a basket, where phials, lint, and surgical tools rather courted than shunned observation.”