"My Lord Marquis," said he, after a long talk with Raphael, "I can
dispel your uneasiness beyond all doubt. I know your constitution well
enough by this time to assure you that the doctors in Paris, whose
great abilities I know, are mistaken as to the nature of your
complaint. You can live as long as Methuselah, my Lord Marquis,
accidents only excepted. Your lungs are as sound as a blacksmith's
bellows, your stomach would put an ostrich to the blush; but if you
persist in living at high altitude, you are running the risk of a
prompt interment in consecrated soil. A few words, my Lord Marquis,
will make my meaning clear to you.
"Chemistry," he began, "has shown us that man's breathing is a real
process of combustion, and the intensity of its action varies
according to the abundance or scarcity of the phlogistic element
stored up by the organism of each individual. In your case, the
phlogistic, or inflammatory element is abundant; if you will permit me
to put it so, you generate superfluous oxygen, possessing as you do
the inflammatory temperament of a man destined to experience strong
emotions. While you breath the keen, pure air that stimulates life in
men of lymphatic constitution, you are accelerating an expenditure of
vitality already too rapid.
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