That very singular man, old Dr. Heidegger, once
invited four venerable friends to meet him in his study. There were three
white-bearded gentlemen, Mr. Medbourne, Colonel Killigrew, and Mr. Gascoigne,
and a withered gentlewoman, whose name was the Widow Wycherly. They were all
melancholy old creatures, who had been unfortunate in life, and whose greatest
misfortune it was, that they were not long ago in their graves. Mr. Medbourne,
in the vigor of his age, had been a prosperous merchant, but had lost his all
by a frantic speculation, and was now little better than a mendicant. Colonel
Killigrew had wasted his best years, and his health and substance, in the
pursuit of sinful pleasures, which had given birth to a brood of pains, such as
the gout, and divers other torments of soul and body. Mr. Gascoigne was a
ruined politician, a man of evil fame, or at least had been so, till time had
buried him from the knowledge of the present generation, and made him obscure
instead of infamous. As for the Widow Wycherly, tradition tells us that she was
a great beauty in her day; but, for a long while past, she had lived in deep
seclusion, on account of certain scandalous stories, which had prejudiced the
gentry of the town against her. It is a circumstance worth mentioning, that
each of these three old gentlemen, Mr. Medbourne, Colonel Killigrew, and Mr.
Gascoigne, were early lovers of the Widow Wycherly, and had once been on the
point of cutting each other's throats for her sake. And, before proceeding
farther, I will merely hint, that Dr. Heidegger and all his four guests were
sometimes thought to be a little beside themselves; as is not unfrequently the
case with old people, when worried either by present troubles or woful
recollections.
'My dear old
friends,' said Dr. Heidegger, motioning them to be seated, 'I am desirous of
your assistance in one of those little experiments with which I amuse myself
here in my study.'
If all stories
were true. Dr. Heidegger's study must have been a very curious place. It was a
dim, old-fashioned chamber, festooned with cobwebs, and besprinkled with
antique dust. Around the walls stood several oaken bookcases, the lower shelves
of which were filled with rows of gigantic folios, and black-letter quartos,
and the upper with little parchment covered duodecimos. Over the central
bookcase was a bronze bust of Hippocrates, with which, according to some
authorities, Dr. Heidegger was accustomed to hold consultations, in all
difficult cases of his practice. In the obscurest corner of the room stood a
tall and narrow oaken closet, with its door ajar, within which doubtfully
appeared a skeleton. Between two of the bookcases hung a looking-glass,
presenting its high and dusty plate within a tarnished gilt frame. Among many
wonderful stories related of this mirror, it was fabled that the spirits of all
the doctor's deceased patients dwelt within its verge, and would stare him in
the face whenever he looked thitherward. The opposite side of the chamber was
ornamented with the full-length portrait of a young lady, arrayed in the faded
magnificence of silk, satin, and brocade, and with a visage as faded as her
dress. Above half a century ago, Dr. Heidegger had been on the point of
marriage with this young lady; but, being affected with some slight disorder,
she had swallowed one of her lover's prescriptions, and died on the bridal
evening. The greatest curiosity of the study remains to be mentioned; it was a
ponderous folio volume, bound in black leather, with massive silver clasps.
There were no letters on the back, and nobody could tell the title of the book.
But it was well known to be a book of magic; and once, when a chambermaid had
lifted it, merely to brush away the dust, the skeleton had rattled in its
closet, the picture of the young lady had stepped one foot upon the floor, and
several ghastly faces had peeped forth from the mirror; while the brazen head
of Hippocrates frowned, and said—'Forbear!'
Such was Dr.
Heidegger's study. On the summer afternoon of our tale, a small round table, as
black as ebony, stood in the centre of the room, sustaining a cut-glass vase,
of beautiful form and elaborate workmanship. The sunshine came through the
window, between the heavy festoons of two faded damask curtains, and fell
directly across this vase; so that a mild splendor was reflected from it on the
ashen visages of the five old people who sat around. Four champaigne glasses
were also on the table.
'My dear old
friends,' repeated Dr. Heidegger, 'may I reckon on your aid in performing an
exceedingly curious experiment?'
Now Dr. Heidegger
was a very strange old gentleman, whose eccentricity had become the nucleus for
a thousand fantastic stories. Some of these fables, to my shame be it spoken,
might possibly be traced back to mine own veracious self; and if any passages
of the present tale should startle the reader's faith, I must be content to
bear the stigma of a fiction-monger.
When the doctor's
four guests heard him talk of his proposed experiment, they anticipated nothing
more wonderful than the murder of a mouse in an air-pump, or the examination of
a cobweb by the microscope, or some similar nonsense, with which he was
constantly in the habit of pestering his intimates. But without waiting for a
reply, Dr. Heidegger hobbled across the chamber, and returned with the same
ponderous folio, bound in black leather, which common report affirmed to be a
book of magic. Undoing the silver clasps, he opened the volume, and took from
among its black-letter pages a rose, or what was once a rose, though now the
green leaves and crimson petals had assumed one brownish hue, and the ancient
flower seemed ready to crumble to dust in the doctor's hands.
'This rose,' said
Dr. Heidegger, with a sigh, 'this same withered and crumbling flower, blossomed
five-and-fifty years ago. It was given me by Sylvia Ward, whose portrait hangs
yonder; and I meant to wear it in my bosom at our wedding. Five-and-fifty years
it has been treasured between the leaves of this old volume. Now, would you
deem it possible that this rose of half a century could ever bloom again?'
'Nonsense!' said
the Widow Wycherly, with a peevish toss of her head. 'You might as well ask
whether an old woman's wrinkled face could ever bloom again.'
'See!' answered
Dr. Heidegger.
He uncovered the
vase, and threw the faded rose into the water which it contained. At first, it
lay lightly on the surface of the fluid, appearing to imbibe none of its
moisture. Soon, however, a singular change began to be visible. The crushed and
dried petals stirred, and assumed a deepening tinge of crimson, as if the
flower were reviving from a death-like slumber; the slender stalk and twigs of
foliage became green; and there was the rose of half a century, looking as
fresh as when Sylvia Ward had first given it to her lover. It was scarcely
full-blown; for some of its delicate red leaves curled modestly around its
moist bosom, within which two or three dew-drops were sparkling.
'That is
certainly a very pretty deception,' said the doctor's friends; carelessly,
however, for they had witnessed greater miracles at a conjurer's show: 'pray
how was it effected?'
'Did you never
hear of the "Fountain of Youth?"' asked Dr. Heidegger, 'which Ponce
De Leon, the Spanish adventurer, went in search of, two or three centuries
ago?'
'But did Ponce De
Leon ever find it?' said the Widow Wycherly.
'No,' answered
Dr. Heidegger, 'for he never sought it in the right place. The famous Fountain
of Youth, if I am rightly informed, is situated in the southern part of the
Floridian peninsula, not far from Lake Macaco. Its source is overshadowed by
several gigantic magnolias, which, though numberless centuries old, have been
kept as fresh as violets, by the virtues of this wonderful water. An
acquaintance of mine, knowing my curiosity in such matters, has sent me what
you see in the vase.'
'Ahem!' said
Colonel Killigrew, who believed not a word of the doctor's story: 'and what may
be the effect of this fluid on the human frame?'
'You shall judge
for yourself, my dear colonel,' replied Dr. Heidegger; 'and all of you, my
respected friends, are welcome to so much of this admirable fluid, as may
restore to you the bloom of youth. For my own part, having had much trouble in
growing old, I am in no hurry to grow young again. With your permission, therefore,
I will merely watch the progress of the experiment.'
While he spoke.
Dr. Heidegger had been filling the four champaigne glasses with the water of
the Fountain of Youth. It was apparently impregnated with an effervescent gas,
for little bubbles were continually ascending from the depths of the glasses,
and bursting in silvery spray at the surface. As the liquor diffused a pleasant
perfume, the old people doubted not that it possessed cordial and comfortable
properties; and, though utter skeptics as to its rejuvenescent power, they were
inclined to swallow it at once. But Dr. Heidegger besought them to stay a
moment.
'Before you
drink, my respectable old friends,' said he, 'it would be well that, with the
experience of a life-time to direct you, you should draw up a few general rules
for your guidance, in, passing a second time through the perils of youth. Think
what a sin and shame it would be, if, with your peculiar advantages, you should
not become patterns of virtue and wisdom to all the young people of the age!'
The doctor's four
venerable friends made him no answer, except by a feeble and tremulous laugh;
so very ridiculous was the idea, that, knowing how closely repentance treads
behind the steps of error, they should ever go astray again.
'Drink, then,'
said the doctor, bowing: 'I rejoice that I have so well selected the subjects
of my experiment.
With palsied
hands, they raised the glasses to their lips. The liquor, if it really
possessed such virtues as Dr. Heidegger imputed to it, could not have been
bestowed on four human beings who needed it more wofully. They looked as if
they had never known what youth or pleasure was, but had been the offspring of
Nature's dotage, and always the gray, decrepit, sapless, miserable creatures,
who now sat stooping round the doctor's table, without life enough in their
souls or bodies to be animated even by the prospect of growing young again.
They drank off the water, and replaced their glasses on the table.
Assuredly there
was an almost immediate improvement in the aspect of the party, not unlike what
might have been produced by a glass of generous wine, together with a sudden
glow of cheerful sunshine, brightening over all their visages at once. There
was a healthful suffusion on their cheeks, instead of the ashen hue that had
made them look so corpse-like. They gazed at one another, and fancied that some
magic power had really begun to smooth away the deep and sad inscriptions which
Father Time had been so long engraving on their brows. The Widow Wycherly adjusted
her cap, for she felt almost like a woman again.
'Give us more of
this wondrous water!' cried they, eagerly. 'We are younger—but we are still too
old! Quick!—give us more!'
'Patience,
patience!' quoth Dr. Heidegger, who sat watching the experiment, with
philosophic coolness. 'You have been a long time growing old. Surely, you might
be content to grow young in half an hour! But the water is at your service.'
Again he filled
their glasses with the liquor of youth, enough of which still remained in the
vase to turn half the old people in the city to the age of their own
grandchildren. While the bubbles were yet sparkling on the brim, the doctor's
four guests snatched their glasses from the table, and swallowed the contents
at a single gulp. Was it delusion! Even while the draught was passing down
their throats, it seemed to have wrought a change on their whole systems. Their
eyes grew clear and bright; a dark shade deepened among their silvery locks;
they sat around the table, three gentlemen, of middle age, and a woman, hardly
beyound her buxom prime.
'My dear widow,
you are charming!' cried Colonel Killigrew, whose eyes had been fixed upon her
face, while the shadows of age were flitting from it like darkness from the
crimson daybreak.
The fair widow
knew, of old, that Colonel Killigrew's compliments were not always measured by
sober truth; so she started up and ran to the mirror, still dreading that the
ugly visage of an old woman would meet her gaze. Meanwhile, the three gentlemen
behaved in such a manner, as proved that the water of the Fountain of Youth
possessed some intoxicating qualities; unless, indeed, their exhilaration of
spirits were merely a lightsome dizziness, caused by the sudden removal of the
weight of years. Mr. Gascoigne's mind seemed to run on political topics, but
whether relating to the past, present, or future, could not easily be
determined, since the same ideas and phrases have been in vogue these fifty
years. Now he rattled forth full-throated sentences about patriotism, national
glory, and the people's right; now he muttered some perilous stuff or other, in
a sly and doubtful whisper, so cautiously that even his own conscience could
scarcely catch the secret; and now, again, he spoke in measured accents, and a deeply
deferential tone, as if a royal ear were listening to his well-turned periods.
Colonel Killigrew all this time had been trolling forth a jolly bottle-song,
and ringing his glass in symphony with the chorus, while his eyes wandered
toward the buxom figure of the Widow Wycherly. On the other side of the table,
Mr. Medbourne was involved in a calculation of dollars and cents, with which
was strangely intermingled a project for supplying the East Indies with ice, by
harnessing a team of whales to the polar icebergs.
As for the Widow
Wycherly, she stood before the mirror, curtseying and simpering to her own
image, and greeting it as the friend whom she loved better than all the world
beside. She thrust her face close to the glass, to see whether some long-remembered
wrinkle or crows-foot had indeed vanished. She examined whether the snow had so
entirely melted from her hair, that the venerable cap could be safely thrown
aside. At last, turning briskly away, she came with a sort of dancing step to
the table.
'My dear old
doctor,' cried she, 'pray favor me with another glass!'
'Certainly, my
dear madam, certainly!' replied the complaisant doctor; 'see! I have already
filled the glasses.'
There, in fact,
stood the four glasses, brim-full of this wonderful water, the delicate spray
of which, as it effervesced from the surface, resembled the tremulous glitter
of diamonds. It was now so nearly sunset, that the chamber had grown duskier
than ever; but a mild and moon-like splendor gleamed from within the vase, and
rested alike on the four guests, and on the doctor's venerable figure. He sat
in a high-backed, elaborately-carved, oaken arm-chair, with a gray dignity of
aspect that might have well befitted that very Father Time, whose power had
never been disputed, save by this fortunate company. Even while quaffing the
third draught of the Fountain of Youth, they were almost awed by the expression
of his mysterious visage.
But, the next
moment, the exhilarating gush of young life shot through their veins. They were
now in the happy prime of youth. Age, with its miserable train of cares, and
sorrows, and diseases, was remembered only as the trouble of a dream, from
which they had joyously awoke. The fresh gloss of the soul, so early lost, and
without which the world's successive scenes had been but a gallery of faded
pictures, again threw its enchantment over all their prospects. They felt like
new-created beings, in a new-created universe.
'We are young! We
are young!' they cried, exultingly.
Youth, like the
extremity of age, had effaced the strongly marked characteristics of middle
life, and mutually assimilated them all. They were a group of merry youngsters,
almost maddened with the exuberant frolicksomeness of their years. The most
singular effect of their gaiety was an impulse to mock the infirmity and
decrepitude of which they had so lately been the victims. They laughed loudly
at their old-fashioned attire, the wide-skirted coats and flapped waistcoats of
the young men, and the ancient cap and gown of the blooming girl. One limped
across the floor, like a gouty grandfather; one set a pair of spectacles
astride of his nose, and pretended to pore over the blackletter pages of the
book of magic; a third seated himself in an arm-chair, and strove to imitate
the venerable dignity of Dr. Heidegger. Then all shouted mirthfully, and leaped
about the room. The Widow Wycherly—if so fresh a damsel could be called a
widow—tripped up to the doctor's chair, with a mischievous merriment in her
rosy face.
'Doctor, you dear
old soul,' cried she, 'get up and dance with me!' And then the four young
people laughed louder than ever, to think what a queer figure the poor old
doctor would cut.
'Pray excuse me,'
answered the doctor, quietly. 'I am old and rheumatic, and my dancing days were
over long ago. But either of these gay young gentlemen will be glad of so
pretty a partner.'
'Dance with me,
Clara!' cried Colonel Killigrew.
'No, no, I will
be her partner!' shouted Mr. Gascoigne.
She promised me
her hand, fifty years ago!' exclaimed Mr. Medbourne.
They all gathered
round her. One caught both her hands in his passionate grasp—another threw his
arm about her waist—the third buried his hand among the glossy curls that
clustered beneath the widow's cap. Blushing, panting, struggling, chiding,
laughing, her warm breath fanning each of their faces by turns, she strove to
disengage herself, yet still remained in their triple embrace. Never was there
a livelier picture of youthful rivalship, with bewitching beauty for the prize.
Yet, by a strange deception, owing to the duskiness of the chamber, and the
antique dresses which they still wore, the tall mirror is said to have
reflected the figures of the three old, gray, withered grandsires, ridiculously
contending for the skinny ugliness of a shrivelled granddam.
But they were
young: their burning passions proved them so. Inflamed to madness by the
coquetry of the girl-widow, who neither granted nor quite withheld her favors,
the three rivals began to interchange threatening glances. Still keeping hold
of the fair prize, they grappled fiercely at one another's throats. As they
struggled to and fro, the table was overturned, and the vase dashed into a
thousand fragments. The precious Water of Youth flowed in a bright stream
across the floor, moistening the wings of a butterfly, which, grown old in the
decline of summer, had alighted there to die. The insect fluttered lightly
through the chamber, and settled on the snowy head of Dr. Heidegger.
'Come, come,
gentlemen!—come, Madam Wycherly,' exclaimed the doctor, 'I really must protest
against this riot.'
They stood still,
and shivered; for it seemed as if gray Time were calling them back from their
sunny youth, far down into the chill and darksome vale of years. They looked at
old Dr. Heidegger, who sat in his carved arm-chair, holding the rose of half a
century, which he had rescued from among the fragments of the shattered vase.
At the motion of his hand, the four rioters resumed their seats; the more
readily, because their violent exertions had wearied them, youthful though they
were.
'My poor Sylvia's
rose!' ejaculated Dr. Heidegger, holding it in the light of the sunset clouds:
'it appears to be fading again.'
And so it was.
Even while the party were looking at it, the flower continued to shrivel up,
till it became as dry and fragile as when the doctor had first thrown it into
the vase. He shook off the few drops of moisture which clung to its petals.
'I love it as
well thus, as in its dewy freshness,' observed he, pressing the withered rose
to his withered lips. While he spoke, the butterfly fluttered down from the
doctor's snowy head, and fell upon the floor.
His guests
shivered again. A strange chillness, whether of the body or spirit they could
not tell, was creeping gradually over them all. They gazed at one another, and
fancied that each fleeting moment snatched away a charm, and left a deepening
furrow where none had been before. Was it an illusion? Had the changes of a
life-time been crowded into so brief a space, and were they now four aged
people, sitting with their old friend, Dr. Heidegger?
'Are we grown old
again, so soon!' cried they, dolefully.
In truth, they
had. The Water of Youth possessed merely a virtue more transient than that of
wine. The delirium which it created had effervesced away. Yes! they were old
again. With a shuddering impulse, that showed her a woman still, the widow
clasped her skinny hands before her face, and wished that the coffin-lid were
over it, since it could be no longer beautiful.
'Yes, friends, ye
are old again,' said Dr. Heidegger; 'and lo! the Water of Youth is all lavished
on the ground. Well—I bemoan it not; for if the fountain gushed at my very
door-step, I would not stoop to bathe my lips in it—no, though its delirium
were for years instead of moments. Such is the lesson ye have taught me!'
But the doctor's
four friends had taught no such lesson to themselves. They resolved forthwith
to make a pilgrimage to Florida, and quaff at morning, noon, and night, from
the Fountain of Youth.
THE END.
