He was in no want of patients, nor consequently of property.  He did not keep the best house in the world; we lived with some little attention to economy.  The usual bill of fare consisted of peas, beans, boiled apples, or cheese.  He considered this food as best suited to the human stomach; that is to say, as most amenable to the grinders, whence it was to encounter the process of digestion.  Nevertheless, easy as was their passage, he was not for stopping the way with too much of them; and, to be sure, he was in the right.  But though he cautioned the maid and me against repletion in respect of solids, it was made up by free permission to drink as much water as we liked.  Far from prescribing us any limits in that direction, he would tell us sometimes: 

“Drink, my children; health consists in the pliability and moisture of the parts.  Drink water by pailfuls; it is a universal dissolvent; water liquefies all the salts.  Is the course of the blood a little sluggish?  This grand principle sets it forward.  Too rapid?  Its career is checked.”

Our doctor was so orthodox on this head that, though advanced in years, he drank nothing himself but water.  He defined old age to be a natural consumption which dries us up and wastes us away; on this principle he deplored the ignorance of those who call wine “old men’s milk.”  He maintained that wine wears them out and corrodes them; and pleaded with all the force of his eloquence against that liquor, fatal in common both to the young and old—­that friend with a serpent in its bosom—­that pleasure with a dagger under its girdle.

In spite of these fine arguments, at the end of a week I felt an ailment which I was blasphemous enough to saddle on the universal dissolvent and the new-fangled diet.  I stated my symptoms to my master, in the hope that he would relax the rigor of his regimen and qualify my meals with a little wine; but his hostility to that liquor was inflexible.

“If you have not philosophy enough,” said he, “for pure water, there are innocent infusions to strengthen the stomach against the nausea of aqueous quaffings.  Sage, for example, has a very pretty flavor; and if you wish to heighten it into a debauch, it is only mixing rosemary, wild poppy, and other simples with it—­but no compounds!”

In vain did he sing the praise of water, and teach me the secret of composing delicious messes.  I was so abstemious that, remarking my moderation, he said: 

“In good sooth, Gil Blas, I marvel not that you are no better than you are; you do not drink enough, my friend.  Water taken in a small quantity serves only to separate the particles of bile and set them in action; but our practise is to drown them in a copious drench.  Fear not, my good lad, lest a superabundance of liquid should either weaken or chill your stomach; far from thy better judgment be that silly fear of unadulterated drink.  I will insure you against all consequences; and if my authority will not serve your turn, read Celsus.  That oracle of the ancients makes an admirable panegyric on water; in short, he says in plain terms that those who plead an inconstant stomach in favor of wine, publish a libel on their own viscera, and make their constitution a pretense for their sensuality.”