My Library

you would never expect, either that Phosphorus gas could reach the condenser, with the stopcock shut, or that a glass retort, already cracked, would long resist the immense pressure of the accumulating and continually heating vapor. I see you have turned Hermetist and Alchemist— Rosicrucian like! and that you are determined to blow yourself up, or else “ ‘Find out the ’lixir Vitæ, Or stumble across the Philosophers’ Stone,’ and the little old man clapped his hands and danced about the room in the most exuberant glee. “ ‘But, my friend,’ said he, ‘as constant trying means eventual success, I have not the slightest doubt but that you will yet become a very rich man, as well as a long-lived one; for, to tell you the truth, you have come nearer this morning to compounding the Elixir of Life—that very Elixir for which Philosophers have toiled during thousands of years, in vain—than any man that ever lived. For instance: had you placed a less quantity of phosphorus in the retort; more of the first and third, and less of the second, fourth, and fifth ingredients, with a slower heat, and the addition of two ounces of ——, and ——, and one of ——,’ mentioning the articles, ‘you would have, indeed, made the water of perpetual youth