Answer:
The four characters of the story represent wealth (Mr. Medbourne), health (Colonel Killigrew), power (Mr. gascolgne) and beauty (Widow Wycherly).
Explanation:
The characters of the short story "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment" by Nathaniel Hawthorne are "three white-bearded gentlemen, Mr. Medbourne, Colonel Killigrew, and Mr. Gascoigne, and a withered gentlewoman, whose name was the Widow Wycherly." They are also the test subjects for the experiment that the doctor wants to test on.
Mr. Medbourne represents wealth, Colonel Killigrew, health, Mr. Gascolgne represents power while the only female character Widow Wycherly represents beauty. The author mentions that
"Mr. Medbourne, in the vigor of his age, had been a prosperous merchant, ....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...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."
The author also points out that right after they drank from the water given by the doctor, "There was a healthful suffusion on their cheeks, instead of the ashen hue that had made them look so corpse-like". Right after the second round of drinking the water from the Fountain of Youth, "Mr. Gascoigne's mind seemed to run on political topics, ..... Colonel Killigrew all this time had been trolling forth a jolly bottle song, and ringing his glass in symphony with the chorus, Mr. Medbourne was involved in a calculation of dollars and cents, ... Widow Wycherly, she stood before the mirror ..... to see whether some long-remembered wrinkle or crow's foot had indeed vanished".
