Page:Cerise, a tale of the last century (IA cerisetaleoflast00whytrich).pdf/66

 by many an enthusiast who liked to regenerate the world in a process of which the making a colossal fortune for himself should be the first step. Not that the Abbé quite believed in the possibility of creating gold, but that, true to his character, he was prepared to be satisfied with any glittering substitute which the world could be induced to accept in its stead. So he too had his little laboratory, his little forge, his little crucibles, and vials, and acids, and essences, all the rudiments of science, and some faint foreshadowings of her noblest discoveries.

If a man goes into his garden, and seeks eagerly on hands and knees, we will suppose, for a four-leaved shamrock, I am not prepared to say that he will succeed in finding that rare and abnormal plant; but in his search after it, and the close attention thereby entailed, he will doubtless observe many beauties of vegetation, many curious arrangements of nature that have hitherto escaped his notice; and though he fails to discover the four-leaved shamrock, he makes acquaintance with a hundred no less interesting specimens, and returns home a wiser naturalist than he went out. So was it with the adepts, as they called themselves, who sought diligently after the philosopher's stone. They read, they thought, they fused, they dissolved, they mingled; they analysed fluids, they separated gases; they ascertained the combinations of which one substance was formed, and the ingredients into which another could be resolved. They missed the object of their search, no doubt, but they lost neither for themselves nor their successors all the result of their labours; for while the precious elixir itself escaped them, they captured almost everything else that was worth learning for the application of chemistry to the humbler purposes of every-day life. Unfortunately, too, in tampering with so many volatile essences, they became familiar with the subtler kinds of poison. A skilful adept of that school knew how to rid a patron of his enemies in twenty-four hours without fail, and to use the while no more overt weapon than the grasp of a gloved hand, a pinch of scented snuff, or the poisoned fragrance of a posy of flowers.

Such men drove a thriving trade in Paris during the Regency, and our Abbé, himself no mean proficient in the craft, was in the habit of spending many an hour in the