I seem to have drawn a second illustration for Part I, Section 2, Member III, Subsection 12. I’m just really enjoying all these jabs at the rich and covetous if I’m honest: “Austin therefore defines covetousness, quarumlibet rerum inhonestam et insatiabilem cupiditatem, a dishonest and insatiable desire of gain; and in one of his epistles compares it to hell, ‘which devours all, and yet never hath enough, a bottomless pit.'” Naturally I drew a braconid wasp and a hornworm caterpillar. Google “braconid wasps” if you are unfamiliar with the more horrifying parasites of the insect world and also enjoy really gross nature videos — “nature red in tooth and claw” and all that — oops wrong author.
Now and then, when I feel like torturing myself, I do some actual math to calculate (very roughly) when I might finish this Anatomy of Melancholy illustration project. Let’s say I keep doing multiple drawings per section and finishing maybe one or two a week… Long story short, I won’t finish unless I live to be at least 126. Please send vitamins. It doesn’t help that I spent an embarrassing amount of time looking at braconid wasp wings and hornworm ocelli on the Internet today. I wouldn’t want to mess those up. People would notice!
I am forcing myself not to draw a third illustration for this section, even though there is some absolute gold in here on how the inordinately wealthy have no friends, and all their relationships are corrupt because everyone is out to “cozen” them. “Cozen” sounds like a cozy version of deception and trickery. I guess it’s kind of sad to be so cozened, but I still don’t feel bad for Jeff Bezos when he can’t get a simple bridge dismantled to make way for his megayacht, or turn into a butterfly. Dang it. I probably am going to have to draw that.
This post is part of a long, tedious, and very illustrated read-along of Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy. More info here and follow along on Facebook here. Illustrations posted via devon_isadevon on Instagram.