Page:Through a Glass Lightly (1897, Greg).djvu/60

 of tow which till his time did vulgar service as stoppers, invented corks. So, too, he established the long, flute-shaped glass wherefrom to drink the elixir he had found, and wherein, like a true hedonist, he might watch the merry atoms frisk and dance like winter stars in running water.

It is also of the essence of a great discovery that it should come at the right moment, and this thing sparkled into being when the fortunes of France were on the ebb. So debilitated was the stomach of the Grand Monarque, that Fagon, his good physician, had to forbid him all but the oldest, and that most villainously laced with water. But this Dom Perignonhow bright a herald, how inspiriting a companion for his dull and lonely Maintenon, aweary with his