Page:Love and its hidden history.djvu/179

 senile, and, one by one, drop into the grave. There is not the slightest doubt about this matter, for I should long since have passed the dark river from sheer exhaustion by loss of blood from an internal arterial injury, had it not been for certain knowledge of counteractive, life-imparting means. Hundreds here in Boston have seen me at death's door from loss of blood one week, and able to outrun the best man in the State the next. Indeed, it is but lately that Mr. Rich, proprietor of two theatres here, marvelled at my recuperative powers, and asked me in his office, "Randolph, how is it that you are half dead one week, and full of life the next? It is very singular! "Well, I gave him an evasive answer, because the time had not then come for telling my precious secret to mankind. But it is here at last, and I solemnly affirm that for years I have resorted to but one means to prolong my life, — a life that has been vampired and sapped more than that of any other human being on the planet. Just as soon as by any means I could stop the loss of blood, even for ten minutes, — just long enough to use the means, — I was sure of regaining all the lost life and strength within the ensuing forty-eight hours! The means I employed, and have for twenty years, and shall use if I can obtain it, — and here is my secret, — was, is, and will be, Pure Protozone, not Phosodyn, or Amylle, or Phymylle, but their radical and base, pure, clear, heaven-sent, thrice-blessed Protozone. God grant I may yet find some one to whom, for the benefit of human kind, I may entrust my secret, — its composition, — when my time shall come to pass the dark river. I have not yet found the person. . ..

The author quoted a little further back, proceeds to observe in continuation of his theme, — the art of female adornment, — "During the French Revolution, among the women, amid the greatest affectation of simplicity, there was much artifice of personal adornment. They used washes and pomatums of all kinds, to which luxuries revolutionary taste was reconciled by such blood-thirsty names as pomade a la guillotine, I'eau de Sanson, etc.

"Under Napoleon the First all the luxurious excesses of the women of the Roman Empire were revived. Madame Tallien bathed herself in a mash of strawberries and raspberries, and had herself rubbed down with sponges dipped in milk and perfumes.

"Most of this was an abuse of the art of cultivating personal