The Count of Monte Cristo

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"No, madame, contrary to most history, it is true; but what you tell me,
madame, what you inquire of me, is not the result of a chance query, for
two years ago you asked me the same questions, and said then, that for a
very long time this history of Mithridates had occupied your mind."

"True, sir. The two favorite studies of my youth were botany and
mineralogy, and subsequently, when I learned that the use of simples
frequently explained the whole history of a people, and the entire life
of individuals in the East, as flowers betoken and symbolize a love
affair, I have regretted that I was not a man, that I might have been a
Flamel, a Fontana, or a Cabanis."

"And the more, madame," said Monte Cristo, "as the Orientals do not
confine themselves, as did Mithridates, to make a cuirass of his
poisons, but they also made them a dagger. Science becomes, in their
hands, not only a defensive weapon, but still more frequently an
offensive one; the one serves against all their physical sufferings,