The next whom Roderick
honored with his attention was a distinguished clergyman, who happened
just then to be engaged in a theological controversy, where human
wrath was more perceptible than divine inspiration.
"You have swallowed a snake, in a cup of sacramental wine," quoth
he.
"Profane wretch!" exclaimed the divine; but, nevertheless, his hand
stole to his breast.
He met a person of sickly sensibility, who, on some early
disappointment, had retired from the world, and thereafter held no
intercourse with his fellow-men, but brooded sullenly or
passionately over the irrevocable past. This man's very heart, if
Roderick might be believed, had been changed into a serpent, which
would finally torment both him and itself to death. Observing a
married couple, whose domestic troubles were matter of notoriety, he
condoled with both on having mutually taken a house-adder to their
bosoms. To an envious author, who deprecated works which he could
never equal, he said that his snake was the slimiest and filthiest
of all the reptile tribe, but was fortunately without a sting.
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