I have read in Pliny, or in some author of that stamp, of a reptile in Africa, whose venom is of that hot, destructive quality, that wheresoever it fastens its tooth, the whole substance of the animal that has been bitten in a few seconds is reduced to dust, crumbles away, and absolutely disappears:  it is called, from this quality, the Annihilator.  Why am I forced to seek, in all the most prodigious and portentous facts of Natural History, for creatures typical of myself? I am that snake, that Annihilator: “wherever I fasten, in a few seconds——.”

O happy sick men, that are groaning under the want of that very thing, the excess of which is my torment!  O fortunate, too fortunate, if you knew your happiness, invalids!  What would I not give to exchange this fierce concoctive and digestive heat,—­this rabid fury which vexes me, which tears and torments me,—­for your quiet, mortified, hermit-like, subdued, and sanctified stomachs, your cool, chastened inclinations and coy desires for food!

To what unhappy figuration of the parts intestine I owe this unnatural craving, I must leave to the anatomists and the physicians to determine:  they, like the rest of the world, have doubtless their eye upon me; and as I have been cut up alive by the sarcasms of my friends, so I shudder when I contemplate the probability that this animal frame, when its restless appetites shall have ceased their importunity, may be cut up also (horrible suggestion!) to determine in what system of solids or fluids this original sin of my constitution lay lurking.  What work will they make with their acids and alkalines, their serums and coagulums, effervescences, viscous matter, bile, chyle, and acrimonious juices, to explain that cause which Nature, who willed the effect to punish me for my sins, may no less have determined to keep in the dark from them, to punish them for their presumption!

You may ask, Mr. Reflector, to what purpose is my appeal to you; what can you do for me?  Alas!  I know too well that my case is out of the reach of advice,—­out of the reach of consolation.  But it is some relief to the wounded heart to impart its tale of misery; and some of my acquaintance, who may read my case in your pages under a borrowed name, may be induced to give it a more humane consideration than I could ever yet obtain from them under my own.  Make them, if possible, to reflect, that an original peculiarity of constitution is no crime; that not that which goes into the mouth desecrates a man, but that which comes out of it,—­such as sarcasm, bitter jests, mocks and taunts, and ill-natured observations; and let them consider, if there be such things (which we have all heard of) as Pious Treachery, Innocent Adultery, &c., whether there may not be also such a thing as Innocent Gluttony.

I shall only subscribe myself,

Your afflicted servant,

EDAX.

CURIOUS FRAGMENTS,