Close the window or you'll catch a chill.

By then too Mozart's opera, from Da Ponte's libretto, had made Figaro a stock character in the European imaginary and set the whole Continent whistling Mozartian airs and chuckling at Figaresque humour.

Now […] have we many chimnies, and yet our tenderlings complain of rheums, catarrhs, and poses.

Your dear friend ought to take heart. From what you have told me, it is quite likely that they are going through a dark night of the soul.