Mr. Medbourne, in the vigorof his age, had been a prosperous merchant, however had misplaced his all by way of a frantic hypothesis, and becamenow little better than a mendicant. Colonel Killigrew had wasted his exceptional years and his fitness and substance inside the pursuit of sinful pleasures which had given delivery to a brood of pains, which includes the gout and divers othertorments of soul and body. Mr. Gascoigne changed into a ruined baby-kisser, a person of evil repute—or, at the least, had been so till time had buried him from the expertise of the prevailing generation and made him obscure in preference tonotorious. As for the widow Wycherly, tradition tells us that she become a brilliant splendor in her day, however for a protracted whilst beyond she had lived in deep seclusion due to positive scandalous tales which had prejudiced the gentry of the town in opposition to her. it's far a circumstance really worth citing that each of these 3 vintage gentlemen—Mr. Medbourne, Colonel Killigrew and Mr. Gascoigne—were early fanatics of the widow Wycherly, and had as soon asbeen on the point of cutting each other’s throats for her sake. And before proceeding farther i'm able to simply trace that Dr. Heidegger and all his 4 guests have been on occasion notion to be a bit beside themselves, as is not now and again the case with vintage humans whilst worried both by means of gift problems or woeful memories.
“My dear old friends,” stated Dr. Heidegger, motioning them to be seated, “i am desirous of your assistance in a single of these little experiments with which I amuse myself right here in my look at.”
If all tales were real, Dr. Heidegger’s examine should had been a very curious location. It become a dim, a82ee8a4ee179e54beacaecce0423cb2 chamber festooned with cobwebs and besprinkled with vintage dust. across thepartitions stood numerous oaken bookcases, the lower shelves of which were full of rows of significant folios and black-letter quartos, and the higher with little parchment-blanketed duodecimos. Over the relevant bookcase become a bronze bust of Hippocrates, with which, according to some government, Dr. Heidegger was aware of preserve consultations in all tough cases of his practice. in the obscurest corner of the room stood a tall and slender oaken closet with its door ajar, inside which doubtfully seemed a skeleton. among two of the bookcases hung a searching-glass, imparting its high and dusty plate inside a tarnished gilt frame. among many first-rate testimonies related of this reflect, it became fabled that the spirits of all of the medical doctor’s deceased patients dwelt inside its verge and might stare him in the face on every occasion he seemed thitherward. the opposite side of the chamber become ornamented with the overall-period portrait of a younger girl arrayed inside the dwindled elegance of silk, satin and brocade, and with a visage as faded as her dress. Above half a century ago Dr. Heidegger were getting ready to marriage with this young woman, however, being affected with a few moderate sickness, she had swallowed one among her lover’s prescriptions and died on the bridal-nighttime. The greatest curiosity of the examine remains to be stated: it turned into a ponderous folio quantity certain in black leather-based, with huge silver clasps. There were no letters on the again, and no one should tell the title of the e book. but it become well known to be a e book of magic, and as soon as, whilst a chambermaid had lifted it simply to combaway the dirt, the skeleton had rattled in its closet, the photo of the younger lady had stepped one foot upon the groundand numerous ghastly faces had peeped forth from the mirror, while the brazen head of Hippocrates frowned and stated, “Forbear!”
Such became Dr. Heidegger’s look at. on the summer time afternoon of our story a small round table as black as ebony stood in the centre of the room, maintaining a reduce-glass vase of beautiful shape and complicated workmanship. the light came through the window between the heavy festoons of two diminished damask curtains and fell at once acrossthis vase, so that a slight beauty become reflected from it at the ashen visages of the 5 old people who sat around. fourchampagne-glasses had been also at the table.
“My pricey old friends,” repeated Dr. Heidegger, “can also I reckon in your useful resource in acting an exceedingly curious test?”
Now, Dr. Heidegger changed into a very ordinary antique gentleman whose eccentricity had end up the nucleus for one thousand brilliant memories. a number of those fables—to my shame be it spoken—might likely be traced lower back to mine personal veracious self; and if any passages of the present story must startle the reader’s faith, I need to be content material to endure the stigma of a fiction-monger.
while the health practitioner’s four visitors heard him communicate of his proposed experiment, they expected nothinggreater super than the homicide of a mouse in an air-pump or the examination of a cobweb with the aid of the microscope, or a few comparable nonsense with which he become continuously within the dependancy of pestering his intimates. however with out awaiting a respond Dr. Heidegger hobbled throughout the chamber and lower back with the same ponderous folio certain in black leather which not unusual report affirmed to be a e book of magic. Undoing the silver clasps, he opened the quantity and took from among its black-letter pages a rose, or what was as soon as a rose, even though now the green leaves and pink petals had assumed one brownish hue and the ancient flower appearedequipped to fall apart to dust in the medical doctor’s arms.
“This rose,” said Dr. Heidegger, with a sigh—”this equal withered and crumbling flower—blossomed five and fifty years ago. It become given me by Sylvia Ward, whose portrait hangs yonder, and that i meant to put on it in my bosom at our wedding. five and fifty years it's been precious between the leaves of this vintage volume. Now, would you deem it possible that this rose of half a century should ever bloom once more?”
“Nonsense!” stated the widow Wycherly, with a peevish toss of her head. “you may as well ask whether an antiquefemale’s wrinkled face should ever bloom again.”
“See!” responded Dr. Heidegger. He uncovered the vase and threw the faded rose into the water which it contained. at the start it lay lightly at the floor of the fluid, performing to imbibe none of its moisture. quickly, however, a novel changebegan to be visible. The crushed and dried petals stirred and assumed a deepening tinge of pink, as though the flower had been reviving from a deathlike slumber, the narrow stalk and twigs of foliage became green, and there has been the rose of 1/2 a century, looking as fresh as whilst Sylvia Ward had first given it to her lover. It turned into scarcely full-blown, for a number of its sensitive pink leaves curled modestly around its wet bosom, inside which or 3 dewdrops had beensparkling.
“this is honestly a completely pretty deception,” said the doctor’s pals—carelessly, however, for they had witnessed moremiracles at a conjurer’s show. “Pray, how turned into it effected?”
“Did you in no way hear of the Fountain of youngsters?” asked Dr. Heidegger, “which Ponce de Leon, the Spanish adventurer, went looking for or three centuries in the past?”
“however did Ponce de Leon ever discover it?” said the widow Wycherly.
“No,” responded Dr. Heidegger, “for he never sought it within the right place. The famous Fountain of teens, if i am rightly knowledgeable, is situated in the southern part of the Floridian peninsula, not some distance from Lake Macaco. Its supply is overshadowed by using numerous tremendous magnolias which, even though numberless centuries vintage, had been kept as fresh as violets by the virtues of this exceptional water. An acquaintance of mine, knowing my curiosityin such topics, has sent me what you spot within the vase.”
“Ahem!” said Colonel Killigrew, who believed now not a word of the health practitioner’s story; “and what can be the effect of this fluid at the human frame?”
“You shall decide for yourself, my expensive colonel,” answered Dr. Heidegger.—”And all of you, my respected buddies, are welcome to a lot of this admirable fluid as can also repair to you the bloom of children. For my very own component, having had a good deal hassle in developing old, i am in no hurry to develop younger again. along with your permission, therefore, i will merely watch the progress of the test.”
while he spoke Dr. Heidegger were filling the 4 champagne-glasses with the water of the Fountain of adolescents. It become reputedly impregnated with an bubbling gas, for little bubbles had been always ascending from the depths of the glasses and bursting in silvery spray on the floor. because the liquor diffused a nice fragrance, the antique humansdoubted now not that it possessed cordial and secure properties, and, though utter sceptics as to its rejuvenescent energy, they have been inclined to swallow it without delay. but Dr. Heidegger besought them to stay a second.
“before you drink, my first rate antique pals,” said he, “it would be properly that, with the experience of a life-time to direct you, you must draw up some wellknown rules in your steerage in passing a second time via the perils of youth. suppose what a sin and shame it would be if, with your extraordinary benefits, you ought to no longer become styles of distinctive feature and wisdom to all the young humans of the age!”
The medical doctor’s four venerable buddies made him no answer besides via a feeble and tremulous snicker, so very ridiculous was the concept that, understanding how closely Repentance treads in the back of the steps of blunders, they must ever move off target once more.
“Drink, then,” said the physician, bowing; “I have a good time that i have so properly selected the topics of my test.”
With palsied arms they raised the glasses to their lips. The liquor, if it honestly possessed such virtues as Dr. Heidegger imputed to it, could not were bestowed on 4 people who wanted it more woefully. They seemed as though that they hadby no means known what teens or pride was, but had been the offspring of Nature’s dotage, and always the grey, decrepit, sapless, depressing creatures who now sat stooping spherical the medical doctor’s table without existenceenough of their souls or our bodies to be lively even by the prospect of growing younger again. They drank off the water and replaced their glasses at the table.
usually, there has been an almost instant development within the factor of the birthday party—no longer unlike what could have been produced by a glass of generous wine—together with a unexpected glow of joyful sunshine, brightening over all their visages right away. there was a wholesome suffusion on their cheeks rather than the ashen hue that had made them look so corpse-like. They gazed at one another, and fancied that some magic electricity had absolutely all started to clean away the deep and sad inscriptions which Father Time were so long engraving on their brows. The widow Wycherly adjusted her cap, for she felt almost like a girl again.
“supply us more of this wondrous water,” cried they, eagerly. “we are younger, but we are still too vintage. short! deliverus more!”
“patience, patience!” quoth Dr. Heidegger, who sat, watching the test with philosophic coolness. “you have been a long term growing vintage; actually you is probably content to grow young in 1/2 an hour. but the water is at your service.” once more he filled their glasses with the liquor of kids, sufficient of which still remained inside the vase to show 1/2 the old humans in the metropolis to the age in their personal grandchildren.
even as the bubbles were but glowing on the brim the health practitioner’s 4 guests snatched their glasses from the tableand swallowed the contents at a unmarried gulp. became it myth? Even at the same time as the draught turned intopassing down their throats it seemed to have wrought a alternate on their whole structures. Their eyes grew clear and shiny; a darkish coloration deepened among their silvery locks: they sat across the desk 3 gentlemen of center age and a female rarely beyond her buxom high.
“My dear widow, you're captivating!” cried Colonel Killigrew, whose eyes have been constant upon her face while the shadows of age have been flitting from it like darkness from the crimson daybreak.
The truthful widow knew of vintage that Colonel Killigrew’s compliments were no longer continually measured via sober reality; so she commenced up and ran to the replicate, nonetheless dreading that the ugly visage of an vintage girl couldmeet her gaze.
in the meantime, the 3 gentlemen behaved in the sort of way as proved that the water of the Fountain of youth possessed a few intoxicating characteristics—except, certainly, their exhilaration of spirits were merely a lightsome dizziness caused by the sudden removal of the burden of years. Mr. Gascoigne’s thoughts seemed to run on political subjects, but whetherregarding the beyond, gift or destiny could not easily be decided, since the equal ideas and phrases were in trend thesefifty years. Now he rattled forth complete-throated sentences about patriotism, national glory and the humans’s right; now he muttered a few perilous stuff or other in a sly and doubtful whisper, so carefully that even his personal conscienceshould scarcely capture the secret; and now, once more, he spoke in measured accents and a deeply-deferential tone, as though a royal ear were being attentive to his well-grew to become durations. Colonel Killigrew all this time had beentrolling forth a jolly bottle-tune and ringing his glass in symphony with the refrain, at the same time as his eyes wandered toward the buxom discern of the widow Wycherly. On the other side of the table, Mr. Medbourne changed into worried in a calculation of bucks and cents with which became surprisingly intermingled a mission for presenting the East Indies with ice by harnessing a team of whales to the polar icebergs. As for the widow Wycherly, she stood earlier than the replicatecourtesying and simpering to her personal photograph and greeting it as the friend whom she cherished better than all of the international except. She thrust her face close to the glass to peer whether or not a few lengthy-remembered wrinkle or crow’s-foot had certainly vanished; she examined whether the snow had so entirely melted from her hair that the venerable cap might be competently thrown apart. At last, turning swiftly away, she came with a type of dancing step to the table.
“My dear old doctor,” cried she, “pray desire me with any other glass.”
“simply, my expensive madam—actually,” answered the complaisant doctor. “See! i've already crammed the glasses.”
There, in truth, stood the 4 glasses brimful of this extraordinary water, the sensitive spray of which, as it effervesced from the surface, resembled the tremulous glitter of diamonds.
It changed into now so nearly sundown that the chamber had grown duskier than ever, however a moderate and moonlike beauty gleamed from within the vase and rested alike on the 4 guests and at the physician’s venerable determine. He sat in a high-subsidized, elaborately-carved oaken arm-chair with a grey dignity of thing that could have nicely befitted that very Father Time whose energy had in no way been disputed store by means of this fortunate business enterprise. Even even as quaffing the third draught of the Fountain of children, they have been nearly awed by means ofthe expression of his mysterious visage. but the next moment the exhilarating gush of young life shot through their veins. They have been now inside the glad top of teenagers. Age, with its miserable train of cares and sorrows and sicknesses, became remembered best because the trouble of a dream from which they'd joyously woke up. The clean gloss of the soul, so early misplaced and without which the world’s successive scenes were but a gallery of dwindled pics, once morethrew its attraction over all their potentialities. They felt like new-created beings in a new-created universe.
“we're younger! we are young!” they cried, exultingly.
children, like the extremity of age, had effaced the strongly-marked traits of center existence and at the same timeassimilated all of them. They have been a collection of merry kids almost maddened with the exuberant frolicsomeness in their years. The maximum singular effect in their gayety become an impulse to mock the disease and decrepitude of which they'd so recently been the victims. They laughed loudly at their a82ee8a4ee179e54beacaecce0423cb2 attire—the wide-skirted coats and flapped waistcoats of the younger men and the historical cap and gown of the blooming woman. One limped throughout the ground like a gouty grandfather; one set a couple of spectacles astride of his nostril and pretended to pore over the black-letter pages of the e-book of magic; a third seated himself in an arm-chair and strove to mimic the venerable dignity of Dr. Heidegger. Then all shouted mirthfully and leaped approximately the room.
The widow Wycherly—in that case clean a damsel might be referred to as a widow—tripped up to the health practitioner’s chair with a mischievous merriment in her rosy face.
“doctor, you expensive antique soul,” cried she, “get up and dance with me;” after which the four young humans laughed louder than ever to assume what a queer determine the terrible antique physician could reduce.
“Pray excuse me,” spoke back the physician, quietly. “i'm vintage and rheumatic, and my dancing-days were over lengthyago. but both of those homosexual younger gentlemen may be satisfied of so pretty a companion.”
“Dance with me, Clara,” cried Colonel Killigrew.
“No, no! I may be her associate,” shouted Mr. Gascoigne.
“She promised me her hand fifty years ago,” exclaimed Mr. Medbourne.
all of them collected round her. One caught each her arms in his passionate draw close, another threw his arm about her waist, the third buried his hand among the smooth curls that clustered beneath the widow’s cap. Blushing, panting, suffering, chiding, laughing, her heat breath fanning every of their faces by means of turns, she strove to disengage herself, but still remained in their triple embody. never turned into there a livelier image of youthful rivalship, with bewitching beauty for the prize. but, by means of a ordinary deception, due to the duskiness of the chamber and the vintage attire which they nevertheless wore, the tall reflect is stated to have meditated the figures of the 3 vintage, grey, withered grand-sires ridiculously contending for the thin ugliness of a shrivelled grandam. but they have been younger: their burning passions proved them so.
infected to insanity with the aid of the coquetry of the female-widow, who neither granted nor quite withheld her favors, the 3 opponents began to interchange threatening glances. nevertheless maintaining preserve of the honest prize, they grappled fiercely at each other’s throats. As they struggled back and forth the table turned into overturned and the vase dashed into 1000 fragments. The treasured Water of kids flowed in a brilliant circulate across the ground, moistening the wings of a butterfly which, grown vintage in the decline of summer, had alighted there to die. The insect fluttered lightlythru the chamber and settled at the snowy head of Dr. Heidegger.
“Come, come, gents! Come, Madam Wycherly!” exclaimed the doctor. “I in reality have to protest in opposition to this rebellion.”
They stood still and shivered, for it regarded as though grey Time had been calling them again from their sunny kids some distance down into the sit back and darksome vale of years. They checked out antique Dr. Heidegger, who sat in his carved armchair retaining the rose of half of a century, which he had rescued from the various fragments of the shattered vase. at the motion of his hand the 4 rioters resumed their seats—the greater readily due to the fact their violent exertions had wearied them, younger though they have been.
“My terrible Sylvia’s rose!” ejaculated Dr. Heidegger, maintaining it within the mild of the sunset clouds. “It seems to befading once more.”
And so it was. Even while the celebration had been searching at it the flower persisted to shrivel up, till it became as dry and fragile as when the health practitioner had first thrown it into the vase. He shook off the few drops of moisture which clung to its petals.
“i really like it as properly for that reason as in its dewy freshness,” determined he, pressing the withered rose to his withered lips.
even as he spoke the butterfly fluttered down from the physician’s snowy head and fell upon the ground. His visitorsshivered again. A odd dullness—whether of the frame or spirit they could not tell—become creeping step by step over all of them. They gazed at each other, and fancied that every fleeting moment snatched away a attraction and left a deepening furrow in which none were earlier than. changed into it an illusion? Had the changes of an entire life been crowded into so short a area, and were they now four elderly human beings sitting with their antique pal Dr. Heidegger?
“Are we grown antique once more so soon?” cried they, dolefully.
In fact, they'd. The Water of youngsters possessed merely a virtue extra temporary than that of wine; the delirium which it created had effervesced away. sure, they were old once more. With a shuddering impulse that showed her a femalenonetheless, the widow clasped her thin fingers earlier than her face and wished that the coffin-lid had been over it, on account that it is able to be no longer lovely.
“yes, friends, ye are antique again,” said Dr. Heidegger, “and, lo! the Water of young people is all lavished at the ground. well, I bemoan it not; for if the fountain gushed at my very doorstep, i might now not hunch to bathe my lips in it—no, even though its delirium were for years as opposed to moments. Such is the lesson ye have taught me.”
but the health practitioner’s four pals had taught no such lesson to themselves. They resolved forthwith to make a pilgrimage to Florida and quaff at morning, noon and night time from the Fountain of adolescents.
“My dear old friends,” stated Dr. Heidegger, motioning them to be seated, “i am desirous of your assistance in a single of these little experiments with which I amuse myself right here in my look at.”
If all tales were real, Dr. Heidegger’s examine should had been a very curious location. It become a dim, a82ee8a4ee179e54beacaecce0423cb2 chamber festooned with cobwebs and besprinkled with vintage dust. across thepartitions stood numerous oaken bookcases, the lower shelves of which were full of rows of significant folios and black-letter quartos, and the higher with little parchment-blanketed duodecimos. Over the relevant bookcase become a bronze bust of Hippocrates, with which, according to some government, Dr. Heidegger was aware of preserve consultations in all tough cases of his practice. in the obscurest corner of the room stood a tall and slender oaken closet with its door ajar, inside which doubtfully seemed a skeleton. among two of the bookcases hung a searching-glass, imparting its high and dusty plate inside a tarnished gilt frame. among many first-rate testimonies related of this reflect, it became fabled that the spirits of all of the medical doctor’s deceased patients dwelt inside its verge and might stare him in the face on every occasion he seemed thitherward. the opposite side of the chamber become ornamented with the overall-period portrait of a younger girl arrayed inside the dwindled elegance of silk, satin and brocade, and with a visage as faded as her dress. Above half a century ago Dr. Heidegger were getting ready to marriage with this young woman, however, being affected with a few moderate sickness, she had swallowed one among her lover’s prescriptions and died on the bridal-nighttime. The greatest curiosity of the examine remains to be stated: it turned into a ponderous folio quantity certain in black leather-based, with huge silver clasps. There were no letters on the again, and no one should tell the title of the e book. but it become well known to be a e book of magic, and as soon as, whilst a chambermaid had lifted it simply to combaway the dirt, the skeleton had rattled in its closet, the photo of the younger lady had stepped one foot upon the groundand numerous ghastly faces had peeped forth from the mirror, while the brazen head of Hippocrates frowned and stated, “Forbear!”
Such became Dr. Heidegger’s look at. on the summer time afternoon of our story a small round table as black as ebony stood in the centre of the room, maintaining a reduce-glass vase of beautiful shape and complicated workmanship. the light came through the window between the heavy festoons of two diminished damask curtains and fell at once acrossthis vase, so that a slight beauty become reflected from it at the ashen visages of the 5 old people who sat around. fourchampagne-glasses had been also at the table.
“My pricey old friends,” repeated Dr. Heidegger, “can also I reckon in your useful resource in acting an exceedingly curious test?”
Now, Dr. Heidegger changed into a very ordinary antique gentleman whose eccentricity had end up the nucleus for one thousand brilliant memories. a number of those fables—to my shame be it spoken—might likely be traced lower back to mine personal veracious self; and if any passages of the present story must startle the reader’s faith, I need to be content material to endure the stigma of a fiction-monger.
while the health practitioner’s four visitors heard him communicate of his proposed experiment, they expected nothinggreater super than the homicide of a mouse in an air-pump or the examination of a cobweb with the aid of the microscope, or a few comparable nonsense with which he become continuously within the dependancy of pestering his intimates. however with out awaiting a respond Dr. Heidegger hobbled throughout the chamber and lower back with the same ponderous folio certain in black leather which not unusual report affirmed to be a e book of magic. Undoing the silver clasps, he opened the quantity and took from among its black-letter pages a rose, or what was as soon as a rose, even though now the green leaves and pink petals had assumed one brownish hue and the ancient flower appearedequipped to fall apart to dust in the medical doctor’s arms.
“This rose,” said Dr. Heidegger, with a sigh—”this equal withered and crumbling flower—blossomed five and fifty years ago. It become given me by Sylvia Ward, whose portrait hangs yonder, and that i meant to put on it in my bosom at our wedding. five and fifty years it's been precious between the leaves of this vintage volume. Now, would you deem it possible that this rose of half a century should ever bloom once more?”
“Nonsense!” stated the widow Wycherly, with a peevish toss of her head. “you may as well ask whether an antiquefemale’s wrinkled face should ever bloom again.”
“See!” responded Dr. Heidegger. He uncovered the vase and threw the faded rose into the water which it contained. at the start it lay lightly at the floor of the fluid, performing to imbibe none of its moisture. quickly, however, a novel changebegan to be visible. The crushed and dried petals stirred and assumed a deepening tinge of pink, as though the flower had been reviving from a deathlike slumber, the narrow stalk and twigs of foliage became green, and there has been the rose of 1/2 a century, looking as fresh as whilst Sylvia Ward had first given it to her lover. It turned into scarcely full-blown, for a number of its sensitive pink leaves curled modestly around its wet bosom, inside which or 3 dewdrops had beensparkling.
“this is honestly a completely pretty deception,” said the doctor’s pals—carelessly, however, for they had witnessed moremiracles at a conjurer’s show. “Pray, how turned into it effected?”
“Did you in no way hear of the Fountain of youngsters?” asked Dr. Heidegger, “which Ponce de Leon, the Spanish adventurer, went looking for or three centuries in the past?”
“however did Ponce de Leon ever discover it?” said the widow Wycherly.
“No,” responded Dr. Heidegger, “for he never sought it within the right place. The famous Fountain of teens, if i am rightly knowledgeable, is situated in the southern part of the Floridian peninsula, not some distance from Lake Macaco. Its supply is overshadowed by using numerous tremendous magnolias which, even though numberless centuries vintage, had been kept as fresh as violets by the virtues of this exceptional water. An acquaintance of mine, knowing my curiosityin such topics, has sent me what you spot within the vase.”
“Ahem!” said Colonel Killigrew, who believed now not a word of the health practitioner’s story; “and what can be the effect of this fluid at the human frame?”
“You shall decide for yourself, my expensive colonel,” answered Dr. Heidegger.—”And all of you, my respected buddies, are welcome to a lot of this admirable fluid as can also repair to you the bloom of children. For my very own component, having had a good deal hassle in developing old, i am in no hurry to develop younger again. along with your permission, therefore, i will merely watch the progress of the test.”
while he spoke Dr. Heidegger were filling the 4 champagne-glasses with the water of the Fountain of adolescents. It become reputedly impregnated with an bubbling gas, for little bubbles had been always ascending from the depths of the glasses and bursting in silvery spray on the floor. because the liquor diffused a nice fragrance, the antique humansdoubted now not that it possessed cordial and secure properties, and, though utter sceptics as to its rejuvenescent energy, they have been inclined to swallow it without delay. but Dr. Heidegger besought them to stay a second.
“before you drink, my first rate antique pals,” said he, “it would be properly that, with the experience of a life-time to direct you, you must draw up some wellknown rules in your steerage in passing a second time via the perils of youth. suppose what a sin and shame it would be if, with your extraordinary benefits, you ought to no longer become styles of distinctive feature and wisdom to all the young humans of the age!”
The medical doctor’s four venerable buddies made him no answer besides via a feeble and tremulous snicker, so very ridiculous was the concept that, understanding how closely Repentance treads in the back of the steps of blunders, they must ever move off target once more.
“Drink, then,” said the physician, bowing; “I have a good time that i have so properly selected the topics of my test.”
With palsied arms they raised the glasses to their lips. The liquor, if it honestly possessed such virtues as Dr. Heidegger imputed to it, could not were bestowed on 4 people who wanted it more woefully. They seemed as though that they hadby no means known what teens or pride was, but had been the offspring of Nature’s dotage, and always the grey, decrepit, sapless, depressing creatures who now sat stooping spherical the medical doctor’s table without existenceenough of their souls or our bodies to be lively even by the prospect of growing younger again. They drank off the water and replaced their glasses at the table.
usually, there has been an almost instant development within the factor of the birthday party—no longer unlike what could have been produced by a glass of generous wine—together with a unexpected glow of joyful sunshine, brightening over all their visages right away. there was a wholesome suffusion on their cheeks rather than the ashen hue that had made them look so corpse-like. They gazed at one another, and fancied that some magic electricity had absolutely all started to clean away the deep and sad inscriptions which Father Time were so long engraving on their brows. The widow Wycherly adjusted her cap, for she felt almost like a girl again.
“supply us more of this wondrous water,” cried they, eagerly. “we are younger, but we are still too vintage. short! deliverus more!”
“patience, patience!” quoth Dr. Heidegger, who sat, watching the test with philosophic coolness. “you have been a long term growing vintage; actually you is probably content to grow young in 1/2 an hour. but the water is at your service.” once more he filled their glasses with the liquor of kids, sufficient of which still remained inside the vase to show 1/2 the old humans in the metropolis to the age in their personal grandchildren.
even as the bubbles were but glowing on the brim the health practitioner’s 4 guests snatched their glasses from the tableand swallowed the contents at a unmarried gulp. became it myth? Even at the same time as the draught turned intopassing down their throats it seemed to have wrought a alternate on their whole structures. Their eyes grew clear and shiny; a darkish coloration deepened among their silvery locks: they sat across the desk 3 gentlemen of center age and a female rarely beyond her buxom high.
“My dear widow, you're captivating!” cried Colonel Killigrew, whose eyes have been constant upon her face while the shadows of age have been flitting from it like darkness from the crimson daybreak.
The truthful widow knew of vintage that Colonel Killigrew’s compliments were no longer continually measured via sober reality; so she commenced up and ran to the replicate, nonetheless dreading that the ugly visage of an vintage girl couldmeet her gaze.
in the meantime, the 3 gentlemen behaved in the sort of way as proved that the water of the Fountain of youth possessed a few intoxicating characteristics—except, certainly, their exhilaration of spirits were merely a lightsome dizziness caused by the sudden removal of the burden of years. Mr. Gascoigne’s thoughts seemed to run on political subjects, but whetherregarding the beyond, gift or destiny could not easily be decided, since the equal ideas and phrases were in trend thesefifty years. Now he rattled forth complete-throated sentences about patriotism, national glory and the humans’s right; now he muttered a few perilous stuff or other in a sly and doubtful whisper, so carefully that even his personal conscienceshould scarcely capture the secret; and now, once more, he spoke in measured accents and a deeply-deferential tone, as though a royal ear were being attentive to his well-grew to become durations. Colonel Killigrew all this time had beentrolling forth a jolly bottle-tune and ringing his glass in symphony with the refrain, at the same time as his eyes wandered toward the buxom discern of the widow Wycherly. On the other side of the table, Mr. Medbourne changed into worried in a calculation of bucks and cents with which became surprisingly intermingled a mission for presenting the East Indies with ice by harnessing a team of whales to the polar icebergs. As for the widow Wycherly, she stood earlier than the replicatecourtesying and simpering to her personal photograph and greeting it as the friend whom she cherished better than all of the international except. She thrust her face close to the glass to peer whether or not a few lengthy-remembered wrinkle or crow’s-foot had certainly vanished; she examined whether the snow had so entirely melted from her hair that the venerable cap might be competently thrown apart. At last, turning swiftly away, she came with a type of dancing step to the table.
“My dear old doctor,” cried she, “pray desire me with any other glass.”
“simply, my expensive madam—actually,” answered the complaisant doctor. “See! i've already crammed the glasses.”
There, in truth, stood the 4 glasses brimful of this extraordinary water, the sensitive spray of which, as it effervesced from the surface, resembled the tremulous glitter of diamonds.
It changed into now so nearly sundown that the chamber had grown duskier than ever, however a moderate and moonlike beauty gleamed from within the vase and rested alike on the 4 guests and at the physician’s venerable determine. He sat in a high-subsidized, elaborately-carved oaken arm-chair with a grey dignity of thing that could have nicely befitted that very Father Time whose energy had in no way been disputed store by means of this fortunate business enterprise. Even even as quaffing the third draught of the Fountain of children, they have been nearly awed by means ofthe expression of his mysterious visage. but the next moment the exhilarating gush of young life shot through their veins. They have been now inside the glad top of teenagers. Age, with its miserable train of cares and sorrows and sicknesses, became remembered best because the trouble of a dream from which they'd joyously woke up. The clean gloss of the soul, so early misplaced and without which the world’s successive scenes were but a gallery of dwindled pics, once morethrew its attraction over all their potentialities. They felt like new-created beings in a new-created universe.
“we're younger! we are young!” they cried, exultingly.
children, like the extremity of age, had effaced the strongly-marked traits of center existence and at the same timeassimilated all of them. They have been a collection of merry kids almost maddened with the exuberant frolicsomeness in their years. The maximum singular effect in their gayety become an impulse to mock the disease and decrepitude of which they'd so recently been the victims. They laughed loudly at their a82ee8a4ee179e54beacaecce0423cb2 attire—the wide-skirted coats and flapped waistcoats of the younger men and the historical cap and gown of the blooming woman. One limped throughout the ground like a gouty grandfather; one set a couple of spectacles astride of his nostril and pretended to pore over the black-letter pages of the e-book of magic; a third seated himself in an arm-chair and strove to mimic the venerable dignity of Dr. Heidegger. Then all shouted mirthfully and leaped approximately the room.
The widow Wycherly—in that case clean a damsel might be referred to as a widow—tripped up to the health practitioner’s chair with a mischievous merriment in her rosy face.
“doctor, you expensive antique soul,” cried she, “get up and dance with me;” after which the four young humans laughed louder than ever to assume what a queer determine the terrible antique physician could reduce.
“Pray excuse me,” spoke back the physician, quietly. “i'm vintage and rheumatic, and my dancing-days were over lengthyago. but both of those homosexual younger gentlemen may be satisfied of so pretty a companion.”
“Dance with me, Clara,” cried Colonel Killigrew.
“No, no! I may be her associate,” shouted Mr. Gascoigne.
“She promised me her hand fifty years ago,” exclaimed Mr. Medbourne.
all of them collected round her. One caught each her arms in his passionate draw close, another threw his arm about her waist, the third buried his hand among the smooth curls that clustered beneath the widow’s cap. Blushing, panting, suffering, chiding, laughing, her heat breath fanning every of their faces by means of turns, she strove to disengage herself, but still remained in their triple embody. never turned into there a livelier image of youthful rivalship, with bewitching beauty for the prize. but, by means of a ordinary deception, due to the duskiness of the chamber and the vintage attire which they nevertheless wore, the tall reflect is stated to have meditated the figures of the 3 vintage, grey, withered grand-sires ridiculously contending for the thin ugliness of a shrivelled grandam. but they have been younger: their burning passions proved them so.
infected to insanity with the aid of the coquetry of the female-widow, who neither granted nor quite withheld her favors, the 3 opponents began to interchange threatening glances. nevertheless maintaining preserve of the honest prize, they grappled fiercely at each other’s throats. As they struggled back and forth the table turned into overturned and the vase dashed into 1000 fragments. The treasured Water of kids flowed in a brilliant circulate across the ground, moistening the wings of a butterfly which, grown vintage in the decline of summer, had alighted there to die. The insect fluttered lightlythru the chamber and settled at the snowy head of Dr. Heidegger.
“Come, come, gents! Come, Madam Wycherly!” exclaimed the doctor. “I in reality have to protest in opposition to this rebellion.”
They stood still and shivered, for it regarded as though grey Time had been calling them again from their sunny kids some distance down into the sit back and darksome vale of years. They checked out antique Dr. Heidegger, who sat in his carved armchair retaining the rose of half of a century, which he had rescued from the various fragments of the shattered vase. at the motion of his hand the 4 rioters resumed their seats—the greater readily due to the fact their violent exertions had wearied them, younger though they have been.
“My terrible Sylvia’s rose!” ejaculated Dr. Heidegger, maintaining it within the mild of the sunset clouds. “It seems to befading once more.”
And so it was. Even while the celebration had been searching at it the flower persisted to shrivel up, till it became as dry and fragile as when the health practitioner had first thrown it into the vase. He shook off the few drops of moisture which clung to its petals.
“i really like it as properly for that reason as in its dewy freshness,” determined he, pressing the withered rose to his withered lips.
even as he spoke the butterfly fluttered down from the physician’s snowy head and fell upon the ground. His visitorsshivered again. A odd dullness—whether of the frame or spirit they could not tell—become creeping step by step over all of them. They gazed at each other, and fancied that every fleeting moment snatched away a attraction and left a deepening furrow in which none were earlier than. changed into it an illusion? Had the changes of an entire life been crowded into so short a area, and were they now four elderly human beings sitting with their antique pal Dr. Heidegger?
“Are we grown antique once more so soon?” cried they, dolefully.
In fact, they'd. The Water of youngsters possessed merely a virtue extra temporary than that of wine; the delirium which it created had effervesced away. sure, they were old once more. With a shuddering impulse that showed her a femalenonetheless, the widow clasped her thin fingers earlier than her face and wished that the coffin-lid had been over it, on account that it is able to be no longer lovely.
“yes, friends, ye are antique again,” said Dr. Heidegger, “and, lo! the Water of young people is all lavished at the ground. well, I bemoan it not; for if the fountain gushed at my very doorstep, i might now not hunch to bathe my lips in it—no, even though its delirium were for years as opposed to moments. Such is the lesson ye have taught me.”
but the health practitioner’s four pals had taught no such lesson to themselves. They resolved forthwith to make a pilgrimage to Florida and quaff at morning, noon and night time from the Fountain of adolescents.
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