Not even the consummate art of Jezebel availed to repair the irretrievable ravages of time. Young girls of redundant health have been known to swallow acids to counteract corpulency; after succeeding in which, they die prematurely of pulmonary affections. An equally fatal result of the desire to please is produced by over-lacing. Ladies desirous to conceal their obesity had far better rely upon a well-chosen dress than upon this injurious expedient. On the other hand, a tight shoe only exhibits more prominently a foot of large dimensions. Nothing is more erroneous than the proverb, “that people must suffer in order to look well.” To be graceful, the movements of the body should be unrestrained.
We have already pointed out the distinction between the art of pleasing, and the desire of pleasing. The desire is common to all, the art limited to a few; and they who charm most are those who please naturally and without effort.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE.
How was the world ever brought to believe that students, in rags, possessed the power of producing gold, when the misery of their personal condition was so apparent? How could individuals, in the enjoyment of competence, ever be tempted to own themselves in the pursuit of chimerical opulence? How could an enlightened century give birth to so monstrous a delusion?
The alchemists, though not comprised among sorcerers, and requiring a separate notice, rivalled them in the pretence to magic; for their volumes abound in recipes for raising the dead, universal elixirs, the regeneration of old people, the transformation of the ugly into the beautiful, and even the creation of men and animals, without other aid than that of a few cinders and herbs!
Such miracles, however, were insignificant compared with the science of producing gold; which, according to some was known to Job. The philosopher’s stone is said, by certain legends, to have been the origin of his fortune; and his poverty to have been occasioned by its loss. These alchemists do not explain how he came to forfeit the scientific powers which had originally produced the stone; such details being beneath the notice of the grand science.
The philosopher’s stone was, on the contrary, a creation of the fourteenth century, and much accredited among the scientific men of that day. Raymond Lully, Nicholas Flamel, Arnaud de Villeneuve, Paracelsus, and several others, were initiated into the secret. Nicholas Flamel was a celebrated alchemist, and having acquired an immense fortune, it was attributed to the philosopher’s stone, which of course stimulated the cupidity of the proselytes of alchemy. Eager was their pursuit of a study which was to endow them with boundless wealth; and these lunatics found coadjutors in persons of weak and credulous mind, while wiser men diverted themselves by sustaining their hopes, and affecting conviction of their success. Such was Van Helmont, who published his belief in the existence of the philosopher’s stone, protesting that he had seen it, and tasted it; that with a grain, he had produced several marks of pure gold.