The Elixir was an imagined liquid sought by the old physical investigators, in order that by its means they might turn every common metal into gold, a pursuit not quite so absurd as it has since appeared.

Anything really superior in its line claims my homage, and this man was the ideal bar-tender, above all vulgar passions, untouched by commonplace sympathies, himself a lover of the liquid happiness he dispenses, and filled with a fine scorn of all those lesser felicities conferred by love or fame or wealth or any of the roundabout agencies for which his fiery elixir is the cheap, all-powerful substitute.